Do Your Worst

TV on Demand could soon be accessible to blind consumers using Apple TV

2011-07-13T21:26:00.001Z

Rumours abound that the next version of Apple's mobile operating system will bring wireless bluetooth connectivity to the Apple TV. Further rumours suggest that apps may also come to the 99 pound set top box for the first time.

iOS5 is set to be launched when the new slimmer slightly better spec'ed iPhone hits the shops around October this year. And when you choose to upgrade your Apple TV around that time, the souped up operating system will activate bluetooth in the little box meaning specifically that you will be able to use a wireless keyboard with it.

Immediately this will make using the on board YOuTUbe application much easier; presently you have to take the cursor on a journey around the onscreen keyboard with up, down, left and right cursor action when you want to type a search term.

Blind orvisually impaired punters who use the native Voiceover screenreader may be particularly pleased as this is something of a long winded task if you can't see the keys. It is, however, perfectly doable without a physical keyboard.

Deliberately forgetting that the bluetooth keyboard connectivity is just a rumour at this stage, why might they decide to add a keyboard to this device? A hobbie device as Apple often refer to it.

The rumourmongers perhaps automatically jump on the idea that apps and browser inclusion are on their way.

Here's the rationale. Question: Why would you need a more natural way of inputting data to this device? Answer: because they must be adding more features that might need an easier and quicker input method. i.e. apps. IT's pure logic. And possibly a browser.

I nearly fell off my seat when I realised the implications of getting a keyboard and apps on my Apple TV box.

For UK users, this could mean that we can load the BBC iPlayer app and watch the vast amount of video you can grab on demand. Wow. This would make it the first ever device in the entire world to make video on demand accessible to blind people on a living room device, a 'sit back' experience if you prefer.

There is presently an iPad app for BBC iPlayer, said not to be altogether accessible at present. But with a bit of work, it could be a world beater and usable on Apple TV too. Amazing.

But added to this, there are apps with which you can watch Sky News and its related video, Sky Movies, Love Film (that's the UK's Netflix equivalent) and more video apps like the TED conference app. Whether ITV player, 4OD or Demand Five have yet got apps to watch their programmes through, I've not gone to the trouble of researching for this blog entry.

It also dawned on me that I would be more likely to purchase a Spotify subscription if I could have it coming through my TV set (which I link up to my hi fi) and thus have oodles of different kinds of music whenever I want it, in top quality and and in seconds.

Heck I could probably throw out my dusty CD collection that I've long since stopped bothering to dig out and listen to. How 1990s and how very time consuming if you can't see it and don't have a personal alphabetical filing system. I'd rather my music was virtual and accessibly findable via digital means rather than stacked up in carbon form in storage furniture that I had to purchase, and which takes up floor and wallspace, thank you very much.

So, getting apps and a keyboard on the Apple TV could be a living room game changer for this blind consumer in the UK. I'd like to add that I really love the little Apple TV remote control so would like the choice of using that with apps too.

Q: What other accessible apps would you like to see on your Apple TV and thus in your living room?

Firmly stuck in the 80s

2010-07-25T16:15:00.002Z

Remember that early 80s look ... burgandy stay pressed trousers, green flight jackets and/or those Yale jumpers that were the rage for five minutes back there?

Well, I have this problem. To me, they're still the height of cool. In my head, ra-ra skirts and bonce boppers are quite the thing.

Having become blind in 1984 at the age of 13, an impressionable age where you want to be 'in the fashion', I find it hard to break out. The last images I ever saw were from that dark early Thatcher post punk modern romantic period where even rap culture hadn't got beyond 'hey you the rocksteady crew'.

TO me, Keith Chegwin is still fresh-faced whereas I gather he's a little more haggered now. Michael Jackson is a good looking black lad in my head, but of course now he's ... well, he's dead but he was apparently white with a funny shaped Peter Pan nose which I can only imagine that I can imagine. Is Tarrant still blonde or did he go grey?

It's as a result of all this that I am obsessed with the 80s. Was I ever glad when Absolute 80s started broadcasting a few months ago; a radio station dedicated to the music and era that I am visually stuck in. The world outside has changed, and indeed so have I in reality, but I still think the graphics in Tron were awesome and probably can't be bettered. (wow that Light Sea).

I find my memory for the 80s is ridiculously good. Because I've not had any images being input to my brain in the past 26 years, I've not had them pushed out or updated. My memory of TV shows, music and comics is borderline embarrassing.

Am I the only one? Come on, time to confess in the comments below. Are you stuck in an era and why? Oh and when I last attempted the 'Mod Walk' on a dance floor, I was hurriedly told to stop by a slightly flustered girlfriend who wondered what on earth I was doing. Right, like as if big fish little fish looks any good?

Disabled student Diaries 2009 (BBC Ouch!)

2009-10-13T18:07:00.002Z

If you've not yet seen it, over at Ouch! we're pretty chuffed with our three students whose diaries we're following.

Charlotte, Lee and Andrea have all just started at university. They each are likely to have different experiences as they each have different impairments.

Go to: Disabled Student Diaries 2009 @ BBC Ouch!

Charlotte is quadriplegic, Lee has a tasty mix of Asperger and Tourettes ... whereas Andrea is visually impaired.

At Ouch! we remember our student days and we take our hats off to them.

When I remember how many things were going on at once in my life back then, I wonder how I dealt with it all.

So. Lets take Charlotte. She's 18, she's always lived at home with her family as primary carers. But she's decided to up sticks to get the independence she craves. It's such a big deal for her because when her A-level results came out ... what's that, around August 20 ... she had NOTHING in place. No assistants, no equipment, no nothing - it's the way we do it here in the UK it seems.

So she's moving home, dropping her long term parental care and needing to get three carers: meaning she's now an employer with payroll, health and safety and insurance responsibilities. Sheesh it's enough to put you off leaving home, isn't it? And yet, at the same time she's starting a new life a few dozen miles away in a town she doesn't know, where she as yet has no friends, and is also taking on a degree to boot.

OK. I'm 39. Back then if anyone had attempted to praise me for doing same I would probably have been a bit annoyed: "it's nothing special, are you being patronising?" Charlotte and our other students are taking on far more than your average student ... and lets hope the system is there to help them achieve it.

I left university in 1994, just at the point that everyone was beginning to start understanding .co.uk and .com language and "if it's got an @ sign in it, it's an email address". My god I'd have loved a computer back then. I couldn't even read a newspaper. I was so darn tech impaired and even the smallest bit of study was so time consuming.

Library studies? Personal development through reading round my subject? Pre internet, it was so far from my experience as a blind person I didn't even really think to do it! I had some DSA money which I used as effectively as I could but I had no guidance and just kinda felt guilty about taking people's time up and having them read to me.

Confusing times. I'd kinda like to do university all over again but the idea of sitting round in seminars listening to people wax lyrical in that pseudo academic way would probably drive me nuts.

Oh and hello to everyone who graduated from the University of Glamorgan in 1994 like I did.

Timbo and Essex Radio (1982 ish)

2009-10-03T04:35:00.001Z

When growing up I was always fascinated by radio. I had a 'wristwatch radio' - a massive massive thing - that I used to play Radio One on whilst riding around on my bike. And at night times, I ccame across Radio Luxembourg and was kinda fascinated and weirded out that I was listening to something so far away that was apparently aimed at me. I lived in Kent at the time, born and bred.

In 1982, at the age of 11, I discovered a little bit more about local radio through a friend at high school. There was very little in the way of radio back then.

I was always aware of Radio Medway's existence but never dreamed of tuning in. But my friend introduced me to Essex Radio which had only been on air a few months, broadcasting from Southend just across the Thames Estuary from where I was on the north Kent coast.

I started tuning in and fell in love with it. It felt weirdly glamorous to have your own local station, at the time Kent's Invicta Sound was a good 2 years away from starting its broadcasts.

The programme I really liked was on at 9pm on weekday evenings - The Timbo Show. Timbo (Tim Lloyd) hosted a show where people could phone in, answer quizzes, have a cosy chat and he also played lots of current music. It was on between 9pm and 11pm before his soon-to-be wife Lindsay King rounded off the day on the station.

Listen to the start of the Timbo show - that jingle, oh that jingle. "T I M B O - well here comes Timbo, he's all set and ready to go ..."

At 10pm, half way through the show, he used to play a jingle which was, I think, originally sent in by a listener called Chris. It was The Timbo Rap. I remember all the words in my head ... it's ridiculous. How can I forget important stuff and yet still remember the Timbo Rap? dare I write out the lyrics in full here and prove just how tragic I am? Yeah, OK then.

To the tune of Good Times, that soul classic from the 70s by Chic.

The Timbo Rap - Essex Radio circa 1982

The Timbo Show is quite all right,
two solid hours of sheer delight.
The latest sounds are on the show,
the highlight of the day for Essex Radio.

Mr Lloyd with his dulcet tones,
singing to the music coming through his 'phones,
competitions and quizzes that will blow your mind,
he gives away fanfares, he's one of a kind.

Do the Timbo Rap give your hands a clap,
Timbo's a hero, there's no doubt about that,
give your feet a tap, to the Timbo Rap,
the man who put Essex, on the map.

Essex Radio star DJ,
get out of his way cos Timbo rules OK.
Good looking and handsome or so he says,
you can't deny Timbo's the best.

Get out of the armchair,
switch off the box,
tune into Timbo,
he's the king of the jocks,
if entertainment is what you seek,
listen to Timbo right through the week.

And one more thing before I go,
convert your friends to the Timbo Show.
Phone him on double 8 double 1,
answer the questions, join in with the fun.

Do the Timbo Rap, give your hands a clap,
Timbo's a hero there's no doubt about that,
give your feet a tap to the Timbo rap,
the man who put Essex, on the map

OK. I did it. it's out there. The thing is, if no one else puts it on the web then it'll never get on the web. See what I'm saying? I wonder how many people are now gonna search for Timbo Rap and find this blog entry? Did I get the words right?

Other things about The Timbo Show that I remember.

• Timbo for president - listeners were invited to write in and get a poster to put up in their window.

• I Love Timbo Badge -- I had one of these. Seriously appalling design even for back then ... but huge and I was so pleased i had one! I wore it to school the next day and a) got accused of being gay and b) was told to take it off my blazer by one of the teachers walking down the corridor.

• TPR - Timbo did a series of shows from the front room's of listeners. The show was controled back in the studio by a robot - TPR - Timbo's Production Robot. It sounded like Roadshow Robbo. Where the hell am I dredging these memroies up from? I'm rapid cycling.

• Timbo did a saturday morning show called The Saturday Whatnot. I think children used to come into the studio, more family oriented.

• When the Saturday Whatnot wasn't on, Tim could be heard doing 'The Timbo Roadshow' on a Saturday lunchtime.

• Quizzes on the show include: Timbo stuck in the middle and The Gogglebox quiz (toot toot).

In late 1983 Timbo was moved to lunchtimes on Essex Radio and everyone I know started listening to The Rod Lucas Show on the newly launched Radio Kent (was Radio Medway). And that's a whole other story.

Essex Radio remembered - a selection of those old jingles on the station that liked to be thought of as 'somewhere special'.

Accessibility 2.0 frustrations

2008-09-26T00:45:00.002Z

Just a short comment tonight because it's late. But just wanting to acknowledge the frustrations I've been having in the past few days trying to experiment with a few of the web 2.0 offerings around.

YouTube is in my sights as a bad place right now. But don't get me wrong, I'm not smashing them over the head for this. Read on ...

I setup a YouTube account last year. As it uses one of those verification graphics during the signup process, you know "Tap what you see into the box" - I had to get my mum to help me to setup the account. FYI, she's used to me calling her up now, asking her to logon to her computer, and getting her to try to fathom out weird graphical fonts so I can participate more fully on the web. In tech parliance, these inaccessible graphical password devices are called 'captcha graphics'. They're there for a good reason, to stop automated spamming, but they seriously hamper blind, dyslexic and other disabled people.

Anyway. I said I'd keep this short. So yesterday I had problems logging onto my YouTube account. I went looking around in the Google help pages to see how to solve the problem. It suggested I change my password to try and stop what sounded like a bit of a known issue. Trouble is, yeah you guessed it, I wasn't able to change the password without having to tap a captcha graphic into a box first. Grrr.Oh taste the sweet sweet irony.

I discovered another way round which I won't bore you with. But I was only able to do it because I have a Gmail account - like YouTube, another of Google's products.

Anyway. That's just one issue with YouTube. Video uploading is an accessibility problem too.

Huh? A blind person wants to upload videos to YouTube? Yeah, why blinkin not? I still talk to people who assume I just listen to Radio 2 but it's a totally weird freakout peculiar myth that blind people don't watch TV. In fact, an Action for Blind People survey in the mid 90s showed that about 10% more blind people watched TV than listened to radio. I've not seen more recent figures than that on this subject unfortunately. I think a web trends survey is probably necesary, if one doesn't already exist.

But going back to YouTube and my point about digital lifestyles. If you look at the flash tools YouTube have created, they're actually most of the way there in terms of accessibility. It's just the final tiny hurdle that causes the difficulty. And so I say that we need to enthuse and engage developers ... get some info about disabled peple's digital lifestyles and web habits out there in a bitesize and interesting way.

Anyway. I'm gonna start posting a few more web 2.0 gripes over the next few weeks. But my point is this. Though I think it's good that I put this info 'out there' on the web on a blog (that's the only reason why I'm doing it, it's not just for the purposes of whinging) - blind people, and other stakeholders in disability, and allies, need to start directly approaching the companies. They may not fully appreciate your digital lifestyle and the knockon -on accessibility problems they may have caused. We're building our lives and office communication methods round the web and its services these days, so we can't afford to stay quiet or communicate in an unhelpful way. So we need to feedback directly. And as part of this, we need to use the so-called 2.0 sites to feedback the problem as part of the strategy - in a positive and engaging way!

So. Who's with me for starting a positive proactive feedback group? A mailing list or blog would be a simple start to this idea.

Scripting enabled - my thoughts

2008-09-21T00:52:00.005Z

I attended Scripting Enabled: fact finding day, yesterday. The organiser Christian Heilmann Did something rather fantastic - his vision was to get geeks and disabled people together to communicate web accessibility difficulties. Tech altruism here. People who wanted to help and learn versus people who wanted real life solutions - many of which are out there, are infinitely doable, it's just about finding a common language and priority list.

There was a second day, Saturday, the hack day where I gather much brainstorming went on. Look at the page and you'll see some plans to be taken forward.

Before I start writing about what I got from the day and how it sparked my imagination, I should just write a little bit about me and what I do first for those of you reading this because I've tagged it -more on that in a bit]

I've been blind since I was a teenager. I use a screenreader called jaws to navigate my computer and the web. I'm a senior content producer at the BBC. This means I am editor of a website, involve myself in issues I know lots about in my department, manage a small team, keep across web trends, and commission projects and work around disability. 'Senior' doesn't necessarily mean I'm old, I should add.

One of my big projects in the last year is to create an accessible Content Production System in-house - there are plenty of websites now thinking about accessibility on their front end but almost no accessible back enhds. So, I have very geeky leanings, know as much as a content producer needs to know, but when it comes to advanced code I know very little but know the general areas, the language and the possibilities. Visually impaired people thus find it difficult to create websites unless they're html coders. Ironically it's much easier to learn HTML and write pages in notepad than it is to find a decent CMS.

So. What did I get from the day. The big theme for me was 'communication', modern communication and sharing. This is where Christian came in and others hit on later in different ways.

The first three speakers Denise Stephens, Kath Moonan and Antonia Hyde all kept banging home the message that there are already solutions, or semi solutions, out there but not enough people know about them. Inevitably little projects, widgets and scripts then get lost on the internet seas, never make it into the real world, and don't help people or get further developed down the right line with user input. I'm kind of extrapolating and building on their ideas here, it seems).

The calls were passionate and interesting and I'm taking it upon myself to try to communicate some of this stuff a little more regularly to readers of the Ouch website - it's the website I am editor of at the BBC. So. That's something positive that I can do as well as hopefully feed back in other ways. Also mindful of Kath's message to me outside the toilets that I put all the geeky stuff in an out of the way place on the site. Moi? Surely not?

Christian the organiser said "if you write about the day on your website or blog, tag it 'scripting enabled' and I'll find it and put it all in one place". Great idea! Social media is amazing. As it gets simpler, it'll help us all find what we want on the web and connect with like-minded people. Once I've written this, I'll tag it on a big social bookmarking site. After getting someone to help me past the captcha graphic last year, I joined the delicious community. It prompted me to download an easy-to-use toolbar so I could help tag the web and build up collaboratively constructive indexes within networks. At the time, the toolbar was not accessible, and I decided to park my social bookmarking ideas. I gather the site itself is much friendlier than its ever been so I'm gonna attempt to tag this blog entry in it later. Am less likely to make the effort to share if it means I need to go to the site itself every time I like a web page and want to tell people about it. Little communicative tools like toolbars tend to be inaccessible. Finding and sharing and being a bigger part of the collaborative web could be assisted with better toolbars somehow. Discuss? Then bigger projects with wider appeal could snowball from there too?

Back to Kath ofAbilityNet. I met with her just before the Accessibility 2.0 conference in Spring '08. She felt it was important for those with accessibility needs to use the social networks themselves to point out their flaws. Like it!

I thought it'd be a cool idea to maybe make the occasional video and upload it to YouTube. A powerful platform to spread the word about accessibility! Interestingly I've not found a very accessible way of getting film off a camcorder, editing it (even editing for sound is most of the way there) but I've not yet found a good simple editing package.or indeed camera that enables easy hook-up. Brilliantly today I've ordered one of these Flip camcorders everyone is banging on about. They LOOK BEAUTIFULLY ACCESSIBLE FROM A BLIND USER POINT OF VIEW> Very few functions, can't flip into another mode too easily cos it's so damn basic, and it beeps to signify recording has started and beeps again when it stops. You can then hook it up to the computer and see it as a drive and whip the AVI file off (I'm assuming the onboard 'send to YouTube with one click' software is inaccessible but my god wouldn't it be brilliant if it wasn't?) Hopefully the uploader on YouTube is accessible now then I can join the rest of the world, be sociable like, on video, share my experiences, be part of conversations, video blog. I've not attempted to upload anything to YouTube for a while. I seem to remember it was a bit hit and miss and was based on a Flash application.

Interestingly when I googled to find whether other blind people had asked on forums for a) an accessible camcorder and b) an accessible video editing package ... I didn't find anything. Is this because blind people don't have a desire to communicate using the big medium most others do? Sound AND VISION? Or what? Warning: don't assume blind people don't want to do it.

We're getting back to communication and talking the same language. Making assumptions is not good. The best way forward, as Christian has said, is to ask questions of the right people. By talking we'll find the right questions to ask and answer. Bridging the gap isn't difficult, it's just we absolutely do need to talk the same language.

Let me give you a bit of an example about a real life bad bit of communication that happened to me last week. I went to a hairdressing salon. My hair had got too long, it looked bad and I knew it. When I arrived, I was introduced to my hairdresser for the day. I expected to just walk to the chair, sit down and have a discussion about lengths and styles and stuff. But the hairdresser, who I'd never met before, started loudly hurling questions at me: "How much can you see? Can you see at all? Can you see me?" I was a bit surprised. "Why do you want to know?" "I was confused, bristling a bit and he knew it! I was just trying to work out how I could help," he said. And I genuinely had thought he was being nosey about my medical condition and wanted to know what was up with my eyes. Two people communicating badly it seems.

Now the great thing with this example is that he felt that by knowing my level of sight, he'd intuitively know how to help me. If I'd said "light and dark" though, would he have been any the wiser? Of course, the best question to ask me would've been "How can I help you". Everyone's different, it's not what's wrong with them that gives helpful indications, it's knowing their access needs. He'd actually embarrassed me in front of the shop by talking to me in the way he did, pointing out my differences very publicly, and tackling an area of my life I don't want to talk about with strangers particularly.

If he'd said: "How can I help you sir?" I'd have said "can I grab your arm and we'll walk over to the chair if that's OK with you". The right question, the right answer, both peple are happy and communicating well.

TO aid in communication, better access and better tools for social media sites are really important. The web is this one big democratic (?) place and when the big areas of communication with each other are tackled, and there are a million ways to do this (Jonathan and Phil talked about something as simple as a spellchecker on online forms to encourage dyslexic people and their views and ideas out of a hole). well perhaps that's a good thing to look at now.

mail me here or leave a comment.

The Saturday Banana - Bill Oddie - my memories

2008-09-10T22:53:00.002Z

For several hours on Saturday mornings between 1978 and 1979, former Goodie and now Springwatch presenter Bill Oddie hosted The Saturday Banana - another of those kids saturday morning shows unique to the UK that you can add alongside: Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore, Tiswas, The Mersey Pirate, Get set for summer, TX< Get Fresh and Going Live.

Watch Saturday Banana clip on YouTube

There have been so many but few seem to remember this show - live from Southern Television's studios in Southampton, it didn't air in all ITV regions.

Popular myth suggests that the original name for the show was to be The Saturday Bonanza - but for a typo, and misunderstanding from a Southern Televisionn secreetary, we wouldn't have had the hilarious fruit oriented fun.

Oddie sat at a desk in front of a huge, and partially peeled, upright banana that had steps going up the left hand side and a slide down the right. More on this in a bit ... it was at one end of what looked like a massive aircraft hanger of a studio.

Comedy robot Metal Mickey sat at one side of Oddie's desk - Bill would occasionally refer to him. EastEnders Michelle Fowler, Susan Tully, formerly of Our Show fame at that stage, was an occasional co-presenter.

Bill was the linkman between cartoons and various studio based features and interviews.

Probably the most famous feature of the show was its own version of the then very popular kids quiz Runaround - usually seen at teatime hosted by another EastEnder and comedian Mike Reid. 10 kids would be asked a multiple choice question with three answers appearing on the screens. After the presenter shouted "Go" or "g-g-g-go", the kids would run full pelt to position themselves next to their preferred answer. "Runaround .... NOW" invited them kids to change their mind by jumping ship to a different answer. The bright kids could tactically run towards the wrong answer then jump to the right answer later.

If you got the wrong answer, you would go to the sin bin. On the Saturday Banana, the sin bin was at the top of the aforementioned giant banana behind Oddie's desk. The kids would run up the steps and stay at the top of the banana = you could see them through a barred window. Then when it was time for them to rejoin the game, they'd slide down the right hand side and get back to their position.

If you got a question right, I think you'd get an orange ball to put in your perspex tube. If you were the ONLY person to get it right, I seem to recall that you'd get a yellow banana to put in your tube - unlike the weekday version of Runaround where you'd get a yellow ball. Well, it worked something like that.

Now. I seem to remember that Oddie himself presnted the Saturday version of the game but another internet site suggests that it was someone else. I vaguely recall that on one episode of the show they invited a Southern Television exec on to discuss whether or not it was too much to have Runaround on telly in its two different forms twice a week. "Is it too much?" And of course the answer was no.

The Saturday Banana did several features out in the car park area. Do I recall them making snowmen one week? An army tank coming in to show kids what being in da army is like? A band playing out there?

On BBC1 at the same time, Swap Shop was at its strongest; I was mainly a Swappy viewer, though actually the Saturday Banana was probably better on reflection.

One week Swap Shop was rudely taken off air due to a strike at the BBC; it was off for several weeks in fact, replaced by a cartoon lineup. SoChannel surfing I saw Oddie mentioning that Swap Shop was off air so they'd stolen one of their staff. Noel Edmonds-like, he shouted for "Eric!!!!" towards the ceiling. And whaddya know, the spherical perspex bubble that Swap Shop fans knew so well, was lowered down, full of viewers letters. Cheeky but funny!

What else do I remember? Not a lot. I recall that Christopher Reeve's 'Superman' movie was very big around this time ...and they had 'Supernana' fly down from the ceiling.

I seem to remember someone called Clark Kent was interivewed d on the show. He wasn't Superman's alter ego, it was a rock star or something. Still no idea who it was. He put a greenn see-through bag on his head which became part of the title sequence after that - don't do this at home, kids.

Do I remember The Smurfs visiting the studio perhaps? Another website I read suggests they did a live linkup with Capital Radio one week. Who with I wonder - Michael Aspel
was big on 194 at that time, I think.
And of course, the musical Bill Oddie, fresh from having chart hits with The Goodies such as 'The Funky Gibbon' and 'The Mickey Mouse Club' ... well, he sang the theme tune too. "sat sat, saturday banana ...". I believe it may have been released as a single. Very quirky.

Do you remember this show? Can you add anything?

Blind person on Big Brother

2008-06-05T05:44:00.003Z

Speculation is mounting that there will be a blind contestant on this year's Big Brother TV show on Channel 4.

As a blind person myself, I'm rather excited and can't wait until 9pm tonight to find out if it's true.

I've already blogged a bit about it on the BBC Ouch website: How will a blind contestant fare in the Big Brother house. And there are certainly some unique challenges that he (they're saying it's going to be a bloke) will have to face.

Being as the blind community is quite a small one, I've had a bit of a revelation this morning as to who it might be. When I get into the office at 8:30 I'm going to start ringing around to see if this person is contactable. If he's not, then there's a small glimmer of a possibility that it could be because he's been holed up in a hotel abroad somewhere to avoid the pre-publicity glare and to keep his identity a secret. This is what they have done in previous years on the reality show anyway.

Reading the Big Brother discussion on the Ouch messageboard, I'm interested by responses from the largely disabled postersd

One young blind woman, who herself has appeared on a Channel 4 documentary, is anxious that the contestant is a good role model and doesn't have some of those weirder blind habits. She's referring to rocking and not looking at people when they talk to you.

I understand where she's coming from. Rocking was a phenomenon I'd never come across until I went to blind school after losing my sight at 13 years old. What's it about? well I don't quite know why people do it but this upper body movement seems to happen at times of anxiety or pleasure and could be a comfort thing. God I've never spelled it out in words before and it feels a bit weird or patronising - sorry if you're one of the aforemention, oddly this habit isn't necessarily confined to people who 'don't know any better' - it's just one of those things born of not being able to see yourself. I dunno. They know it's not something sighted people would tend to do, they know it looks a bit odd but if you've been doing it all your life it's a tick that is hard to break.

Anyway, of course it's desirable that our blind person is a good portrayal. I just hope he isn't the kind of person who trots out cliches: see the ability not the disability, I can't see but I don't consider myself to be blind (!), stuff like that. and I dearly hope that the geordie voiceover doesn't start couching everything he does in terms of bravery, inspiration or 'despite being blind'. But I don't think this will happen. The voiceover on BB is minimalist and not judgmental or too directive.

What would I like to see him doing? well I hope that BB does minimalist adjustments to the house: talking microwave, perhaps - a blindie kitchen favourite. But perhaps the most interesting will be his inclusion in the show's tasks.

In the past, some of the tasks have been quite visual. But I can think of many previous tasks that are easily doable. I would expect some tasks to allow for his sight loss though and, if there is a time limit for contestants to achieve their goal, it'd be reasonable to expect he'd get a slightly higher time limit. Just like when sitting school exams: some disabled people might get 150% of the usual exam time, for instance. If I recall, my 3 hour maths exam was lengthened to four and a half hours - which almost killed me but was necessary due to the more manual approach I have to reading and writing and having to keep more in my memory rather than on a notepad or jotter.

Reading comments from some people on various messageboards over the web, it's clear that the nation are ready for a bit of education on blind people. "Oh it's a foregone conclusion, he's bound to get public sympathy and win" a few people have said (paraphrased). Others have focused on the health and safety and, reading between the lines, have suggested it'll be less fun if we have to have a blind person on the show.

9pm tonight then. You gonna be there?

email me on this or other subjects. -or leave a message below. Interested to hear your thoughts.

The Brothers' Lee

2007-11-16T00:28:00.000Z

Whatever happened to good old fashioned humour like that from the excellent Brothers' Lee - regulars on The Generation Game, London Night Out and other variety shows of the 70s?

I bemoan their loss.

3 grown men doing syncrhonised Tommy Cooper impressions. Priceless!

The original Rentaghost

2007-11-12T15:15:00.001Z

Ya see, in the early days of Rentaghost, it was all quite different.

It wasn't a weekly panto on yer telly, replete with Dobbin the horse, it was a little darker and more interesting.

As I remember, the first series pretty much focused in on one character - whose name I have entirely forgotten. But basically he had only recently died and was still coming to terms with it. He was a rubbish ghost who, unlike the others, still couldn't walk through walls or transport himself with that nose holding trick they all used.

Was his name Mumford? Mr Mumford? Or was it Mumford / Mumphord who was the original Mr Meaker?

So, back to this original ghost. He hadn't told his parents he was dead. So it was real dark humour. WE'd see him visit his parents and try to remain as human as possible.

Why am I talking about it? I just found a clip on YouTube, that's why. Here it is for you

src="http://www.youtube.com/v/izqcZNNs58U&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355">

Click here if you can't see the above link

Smoke over London

2007-11-12T13:15:00.000Z

Always really scary for Londoners when reports of fires and explosions are broadcast on the news.

I was listening to Five Live at about 12:45 when I first heard ... so I zoomed off to watch Sky News in my living room - I figured they were onto it as the radio presenter was describing what she could see on TV.

Anyway. If you haven't caught up yet it seems it's not a terrorist attack. it's a fire that broke out in a disused bus depot Hackney / Stratford wa y.

Disused because it's one of the buildings earmarked for demolition to make way for the new Olympic development.

A massive plume of smoke over the capital though. One person from Rochester in Kent contacted BBC News 24 to say she could see it from there.

Smoke dying down now they say. The fire service appear to be taking good control of it with over a dozen units there.

Anxiety that there is an unused fuel tank on or near the site.

e man called in to say lots of fibreglass was on fire, spitting up into the air. A potentially unpleasant health risk if people breathe it in.

Fire was reported at 12pm. Transport for London are still saying it's not their property though locals say it is. 15 fire appliances there now ... no people reported injured.

Whew. Adrenalin levels down a bit fellow Londoners. All looks reasonably OK.

Another new thing

2007-11-11T17:58:00.000Z

Dull as it is, this is me posting on my brand new laptop as mentioned in the previous post. Vista is up and working, jaws 9 beta is running, and I've just deleted the pesky Google Desktop apploication that somehow weedled its way onto my machine.

I'ts only taken about 5 hours of my time today. That's fine isn't it.

I'm having real sympathy with Mac cultists in the last few days. Is there a screenreader for Macs that is half way as good as JAWS?
I don't think there is.

Anyhoo. This vista thing is gonna take a bit of getting used to. And JAWS 9 isn't as nice and smooth as jaws 7 used to be.
Just Sky Plused Empire Strikes Back with audio description on ITV this afternoon. WHo'd have thought that button 3 on my TV would bring anything worth watching.

'puters

2007-11-08T08:55:00.000Z

This is quite cool. For the first time ever I am writing this blog using a wireless laptop. Can you tell the difference? Just loungin' around, thought I'd connect with cyberspace, moved my computer towards me a little, and whaddya know I'm posting without even having to wander to another part of my house where the computer resides. Well actually it blew up but that's another story. I'm a little late to this wireless thing, seems everyone else has been into it for quite some time.

Took delivery of a brand new laptop at the weekend - note, not this one. It has Vista on it - Microsoft's new operating system.

I'm using JAWS 8 with it currently but from the get go I have been having problems using it. For starters, the JAWS installation CD is designed so that you can install the screenreading software independently. Yeah. Well. That may have been the case on Windows XP but not so on Vista it seems.

Vista's big seling point, and big innovation, is its added security. So far it seems that the inbuilt Vista security methods are getting in the way of me installing jaws in the first darn place. In short: it doesn't all speak.

I got someone else to help me install it and now have JAWS on board. However, there is a certain amount of learning that I need to do it seems. For starters, where has the shutdown button gone? How do you turn your PC off in Vista? It used to be in the start menu. Not any more.

But oh ... JAWS doesn't work too well in the Vista environment yet. Certain things just aren't being voiced. I have to say I am extremeley disappointed so far.

JAWS 9 is due for release any day now though so maybe this'll fix the bugs. It had better. JAWS specifically claims it supports Windows Vista.

IF anyone has any tips for me, please leave a comment on this blog. My home email address is not working currently so I am not picking up any personal messages.

Blog takeover

2007-10-31T18:57:00.000Z

Just in case you were wondering what all those videos were in the last thre posts I made, well, don't worry. I hadn't lost my identity, no one nicked my login details ... I was simply demonstrating to the See Hear team how a new video blog website might look.

They need more video and a decent and simple way of doing it. That's what all that video was about.

Good. Glad we cleared that one up. Do check out the Coming Out video though from See Hear's Charlie.

Oooh Anna Jones has just appeared on Sky News. I have a bit of a thing for her.

Identify yourself as Deaf !

2007-10-31T15:55:00.000Z

See Hear's very own Charlie is behind this creative film.

You got a film you've made? Is it on YouTube or another video site on the web? send the URL to us right now by email email SH

Deaf Ninja II

2007-10-31T15:50:00.000Z

Duelling hands at dawn ...

You gotta watch this. Top speed precision signing ... sharp as a knife.

Whaddya think of him? Can you do better? Click on Comments and tell us.

Sign language singers

2007-10-31T15:38:00.000Z

Great video I want to share with you today. The team here have been sharing it for days and bouncing along to it.

Madeleine McCann - the parents can't be guilty

2007-09-15T05:58:00.000Z

My mate reckons the parents are guilty purely based on the guttural way he says "Maaadeleine" when talking about her. But, ya know, you can't hold his Scottish heritage against him, can you? And actually, this isn't in the least bit funny.

The whole McCann story is fascinating and tragic. I simply cannot believe that they killed their daughter. If they did then we have been witnessing theee most audacious cover-up in world media history. No? 21st century all pervasive media gone wild!

Gerry shuttled across Europe to give press conferences in order to distribute Madeleine's image widely and help find his daughter. He visited Washington and Morocco. He has setup a website and blog. There is a video on YouTube. David Beckham, J K Rowling, Gordon Brown, numerous top notch celebs and noteworthies have commented or made appeals. But also, Gerry McCann gave an interview at the Edinburgh Television Festival about how modern media can help people in their situation! The McCanns both appeared on the BBC TV religious and ethics show Heaven and Earth and, biggest of all, with their catholicism and church-going ever-present in the media coverage, they had an audience with the pope! Readers, they went all the way to papa in Rome, the closest thing to a living god in the catholic world, and he received them.

If they did kill Madeleine, deliberately or accidentally (the latter being far more likely if they are at all to blame), then the way it has played out since May 3 is just unreal. Was it they who started the media snowball? Or were they railroaded into it and couldn't really say "actually maybe we should play this down a bit". How would that have looked? There was such a lot of goodwill shown to them, perhaps they got caught up in it and simply couldn't say no for fear of getting rumbled. So much media around, so many different people wanting to do something, and so many people now being able to help thanks to the internet and 24-hour news operations.

They stayed in Portugal for over 4 months. They appointed PR peple, they courted and managed the media intelligently and professionally. They clearly had an extremely close relationship with journalists on Sky News for instance, you could kind of tell that journos were also trying to keep the story alive as the McCann's PR peple spinned and found new aspects, anggles and subplots for them all to report on. Sky had a poster on their website that they kept urging viewers to download and display.

YouTube video: Madeleine's mother now suspect

You can see why the Portuguese police may wish to put an end to the situation. It's not doing them any favours, it's taking up too much of their time and resources, it's destroying their credibility and it's not helping the local tourism industry.

Giving them Arguido (suspect) status, throwing question marks above the parents heads, it rather takes the emphasis off the local police and muddies the waters. It also disassociates Portugal from child kidnappers and paedophiles.

But Gerry and Kate still drove around in the much discussed hire car presumably long after the police thought it a significant crime scene object. Why didn't they impound it? Why are they only now asking for Kate's diary? Why didn't they take copies of the pages previously? Why are they privately briefing the press in the way they are? But most of all, why did they not arrest Madelein's parents and keep them in Portugal? All this feels the wrong way to conduct a police investigation if they believe their evidence will stick and lead to a successful prosecution (could they ever have a successful prosecution anyway after all this apparent lack of haste and resulting contamination of crime scenes?) Maybe the Portuguese police are now winning the media battle after months of criticism aimed at them through newspapers and TV in the UK.

Suggesting the police have an agenda other than trying to capture the real Perpetrators of the crime is extremely cynical, though. This also doesn't feel right. Are the police just desperate bunglers as sometimes portrayed?

I'm just not sure what's going on here ... and some of it could be due to local cultural stuff with the portuguese police that I don't understand as an outsider. Not to mention the fact that I am undoubtedly influenced by the British media, who are now lapping this stuff up hungrily and who are arguably more interested in the sensationalist story partly because they are astonished at the idea the McCann's may have hoodwinked them as well as everyone else. I can only assume Hollywood are looking on interested ... well if they hadn't already unwittingly made a similar movie which they now can't release in Europe.

I simply didn't see any of this coming, did you?

But getting back to reality. Madeleine's disappearance is a dreadful thing. If any parts of this blog entry appear to be tongue-in-cheek it's because of the way we are now consuming and living with this story. It has become an eyebrow raising deep breaths roller coaster experience that feels 'incredible' in the true sense of the word. The potential audacity has flung it into the comedy arena at least a little. I take no pleasure from this but I think you appreciate my point.

Assuming the parents are innocent - because I really want to assume this - they must be at their lowest ebb. Their soapbox and ability to campaign has been pulled from underneath them now they have arguido status. They can't easily rebutt accusations in the way they would want ... and sadly their silencing means they can't now easily carry on campaigning to find their daughter in the way they were able to just over a week ago. And would they be taken as seriously anyway? Worse, Kate's character is being openly dissected and questioned, they're facing a potential manslaughter trial in Portugal, and they have to be strong and brave for the sake of their twins - they must be terrified, heartbroken and utterly demotivated.

Above all, their daughter is still missing. What a dreadful dreadful situation.

I repeat, if this is a cover-up of some kind then this is the most audacious hoodwinking I've ever witnessed. But, in many ways, no matter what the outcome, I think I will still be feeling desperate for the McCanns.

Chorlton and the Wheelies

2007-09-15T03:01:00.000Z

God I love YouTube.

Below click and watch a clip of Chorlton and the Wheeleies - a slightly surreal children's animation from the 1970s. Bit hard to understand but as I recollect we have a race of little blobs people who have wheels instead of legs. There is a witch, Fenela, who in a kind of Queen of Narnia way has put a spell on the wheelie kingdom and now controls them. Chorlton the big, friendly but unintelligent dragon somehow protects the wheelie folk and stands up to Fenela but doesn't really realise he's doing it.

The theme tune really takes me back to my childhood and gets me all bouncingly joyous in a way I could only feel like back then before the weight of the world crushed my spirit.

Watch Chorlton and the Wheelies on YouTube

I particularly love Chorlton and the Wheelies because it is a land of ramps and slopes and level access. It's a classic disability allegory. No, really. I spent some time in 1999 trying to put together a pitch for the BBC where we took the show, cut the video around, re-voiced it and created more disability themed animations. It didn't get very far sadly. And though I think it was a genius idea, I can already feel the wrath from Chorlton fans for a) altering it and b) making it political (everything's seen as political in disability no matter how cute the tale)

So, wheelchair using world, is this the best most perfect access you've ever seen? Aww well, never mind, just sing along to the theme tune with me ... (I like the bit where fenela laughs then chorlton laughs)

NW London tube - TV's future

2007-09-10T17:37:00.000Z

On one hand I really only like watching well-produced television like Heroes or Six Feet Under or the news ... but on the other hand I get gripped and oddly fascinated by what might appear to be ridiculous rubbish.

YouTube. It's that site again. I found a video of a few slightly pissed-up lads who made a film of their journey down to Willesden Green tube station. Being as I live in this area of NW London, I found it weirdly fascinating that I was seeing (well, hearing) the same tube journey I regularly take.

Watch the tube journey to Willesden Green

Seen it yet? Pointless really.

Again I need to harp on about this til you choke up chunks of fleshy glass. If, for instance, BBC1 said hello to me and read out a birthday greeting to me I'd be utterly unimpressed. If they made a drama about North West London, I wouldn't tune in cos it'd probably be a really shit story with shit characters. But sticck a clip up on a video sharing website of a tube journey I'm already more than familiar with ... no production values whatsoever ... and it's watchable. Why? Explain to me why?

Are we seeing the shape of BBC1 or ITV1 future, here?

"Well," reasoned the ITV executive, "if people are watching other people travel from A to B on an underground train in realtime on YouTube, we might just as well ppoint a video camera at a wall and go home". But it'd be like, wow, I've got a wall like that! And do you remember that pile of crap they used to put on called Coronation Street?

BBC Ouch on YouTube

2007-09-07T18:33:00.000Z

In case you haven't clocked it yet, we have a whole bunch of videos up on YouTube taken inside the Ouch Podcast studio and also on location at Liberty (London's disability rights festival, Sep 1). Go and look now: BBC Ouch on YouTube. Well worth a look.

Save the cheerleader, save the world ...

2007-09-04T03:20:00.000Z

Is it just me who's obsessed with Heroes? It's fabulous. I just accidentally discovered something about Claire though whilst googling. Darn this internet ... with no warning at all you can find yourself amid spoilers for TV shows by dint of what country you're in. For Americans, the fact that Claire's parents are <##edited names out###> is just everyday common knowledge because it was broadcast months ago ... but not so in the UK. So, Heroes fans, be careful when 'surfing'. I also darn well found out what happens to Hiro at the end of the season too. Or at least I think I did. It makes no sense from this distance though so I'm not really sure about it.

Remember ... save the cheerleader, save the world ... OK?

Podcast yesterday

2007-09-04T03:02:00.000Z

God I always have a dreadful buzzyness on podcast days. I go into mental hyperdrive. I pour over every last inch of the script structure to make sure the presenters have what they need ... plus prepare my thoughts and comments for the production meeting that we always have an hour prior to going into the studio. WE do this, as yesterday, in the noisy environs of the Radio Cafe in Broadcasting House. The drill is that Damon buys everyone a coffee (hot chocolate always for Liz and tea for Emma) and then Mat tries to ignore everything I say for the next hour. Yesterday was different though with Laurence instead of Mat ... it's almost like he wanted to hear what I had to say! and had an attention span longer than 5 seconds. No offence to Mat of course ... we say all this in front of his face every month so it's nothing new to him. He knows he can be an effing nightmare, bless him.

Anyway. note the buzzyness continues as it's just gone 4am as I write this blog entry and I'm already considering starting to edit it. I got home around 10pm last night in tube-strike stricken London though god knows what time Laurence got home; he set off for Liverpool by car at about 9:30. Family man. Duties. Obligations. Nicer bed than the hotel we offered to put him up in or something.

Studio at 6. There was a team still in there so we had to wait outside for a bit. this delay knocked on a bit then we had some technical problems speaking to a contributor in Caversham though our Blackpool contributor (The famous Jacqui Jackson of 'my family and autism' fame) was there straight away. Good old ISDN. An item about parenting ... bit serious for us I spose but lets see how it goes down. It's an important and often fascinating everyday lifestyle thing for disabled people that lots of us want to know about and talk about in terms of tips and emotions whether we are parents of disabled kids or disabled parents who have kids disabled or not.

I didn't produce the Edinburgh podcast last month god darn ... this is because of my hearing issues I referred to on this blog back then. Really couldn't hear well after a nasty infection in both ears. So I ducked out and the lovely Kate Ansell stepped in. Next month it's the turn of Ouch researcher Emma Tracey to produce. Egalitarian innit? I've done it single handed since March last year and it's important others have the ability to do it if I have to go away ... like for guide dog training or other things. Did you say other things, Damon? More another time on this lack-of-a-revelation perhaps.

Loved doing the podcast with Laurence. Very different indeed for us. But Mat has been able to fit us back into his very busy schedule for at least the next two months ;) And it'll be great to work with him again.

The latest podcast featuring Laurence Clark as co-presenter will appear on Ouch this coming Thursday with a fair wind behind us. Lots of images and video to accompany it too on our Flickr and YouTube pages.

Click to go to the Ouch Podcast page

the week ahead

2007-09-02T06:28:00.001Z

Interesting day ahead tomorrow. WE do this, like, podcast every month. WE've been doing it since March 2006. But one of the usual presenters, Mat Fraser, isn't able to make it. I don't think he was entirely happy when we said that we wouldn't be able to do it on the Sunday night in the middle of the bank holiday weekend to fit with his overloaded timetable ... but he has graciously stepped aside now and in his place this month is disabled comedian Laurence Clark - go and catch his show if you can, he's great. So, yeah, interesting. Some great guests on the show and some really good subjects lined up to chat about. Oh gosh all this disability angst and introspection!

What else. Oh yeah. Interesting article about disabled people and tattoos hopefully will be up and ready to go on the site this week. Some really interesting stuff planned too.

Oh and it's not public knowledge yet (I think) but I know who the new editor of Disability Now is going to be! And it's a person whom I owe an awful lot to. Gosh, how confusing that a 'rival' publication should have someone I know so well at the helm! But are we rivals really? Perhaps not. DN is able to be more of a campaigning newspaper which is interesting and worthwhile. The BBC can't easily get into campaigning in the same way, publically funded 'Auntie', nor have the same angry societal corrective stance. BBC OUch is mainly about personal features and community: exploring what's in our heads and hearts. But, when written down, even that looks a bit crap. We push a bit beyond that. And sometimes just wrap stuff in big fluffy cotton towels and smother it before it comes to life. What am I talking about.

Oh and we're stalling but working up a really REALLY big new site re-design for Ouch - which is likely to be a really big change and quite likely to make the Ouch team work in a relatively different way. Lets see. Can't say much more because my contract stops me from saying anything remotely specific.

Welcome home to ITV (video)

2007-08-08T05:19:00.000Z

No, not the words Michael Grade is hoping to use when he gets the ailing TV network back into shape (gosh he's got some weight on his shoulders) ... but a flashback in time to 1979.

The world was very different back then. Labour - Old Labour if you will - was crippled by the power of the unions. Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister after beating Jim Callaghan in the general election of may 3, 1979 ... and I was just 8 years old.

So, what's this got to do with ITV? Strikes, that's what.

On 10 August 1979, the entire ITV network went off air in sympathy with actions and incidents at Thames Television and elsewhere. Incredibly, technicians unions remained deadlocked with bosses for 10 weeks. ITV did not return to the national airwaves until October 23.

There were only 3 channels at the time: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. When you hit the third button on your television set, you saw a message stating that due to industrial action there were no programmes. Nothing. For a commercial operator, this was immense and would never happen today. Can you imagine it? When you walked into Rumbellows or other electrical stores with many television sets on display, that's when the effect hit hardest.

What am I building up to?

Well this morning I found a fantastic video clip on YouTube. I remember the night when ITV re-opened. They had big colourful gold letters "Welcome home to ITV" accompanied by a jingle of similar theme.

Watch 'Welcome home to ITV' video

... it is so amazingly 70s and old-fashoned. I don't remember a TV company having a jingle quite like this before or since. They acknowledge their absense and were going to treat us with some of their best shows to say hello again and thank you for waiting.

See also: 'ITN News at 5:45' that evening followed by 'Welcome home' promo again, tonight's schedule and the beginning of The Muppet Show.

great shows that evening: Muppets, Crossroads, George and Mildred, Coronation Street, Quatermass. Where'd it all go?

Before Crossroads and Coronation Street, the two big soaps on the channel, a short catch-up film featuring Noele Gordon (Meg Mortimer, owner of the motel) and Doris Speed (Annie Walker, landlady of the Rovers Return) respectively, was shown. They appeared to be in a sitting room, welcoming you back to the soaps, reminding you where we all left off back in early August.

That jingle "welcome welcome welcome home to ITV" has been going round in my head for years. So funny to hear it again. YouTube is the ghost of television past and it's fantastic - I do hope copyright clampdowns aren't going to kill off finding video treasures like this on the internet.

• Strike Out - more on TV strikes from Thames Television's ill-fated first night through to the 1979 strike and more.

• Half forgotten greats - more about the TV landscape of the 70s, its politics and technical standoffs and issues.

• 10 days that shook ITV - 1979 strike, Channel 4 start, Thames' poaching of Dallas, onDigital, and more.

No emotion

2007-08-06T18:11:00.001Z

How? Just how the fuck am I supposed to reflect and broadcast my 'current mood' when there is no drop-down box or list to choose from on this blog? Am I supposed to fucking well use words or something? Well how old fucking fashioned and fucking useless. Not even so much as a fucking 'status line'. I'm fucking off to Facebook.

If you whinge on your blog, people stop reading it

2007-08-02T22:19:00.001Z

I seriously want to have a big open whinge of high proportion.

The last two or three weeks I have been deaf. That's deaf as well as the usual run-of-the-mill blind. Wax and infection. Glue. Nasty gunge. It's incredible.

When sighties get an ear infection and can't hear, they trot into work, occasionally hold their head on one side and point at their ear to suggest communication issues, then turn round to their computer and get on with their work anyway.

For me, if I get an ear infection ... I can't even go into work! Sensory deprivation. That's not to say that deafblind people aren't cool and able and active, it's just that I am not at all used to having neither of my dominant senses. Orientation, direction-finding and work is nigh on impossible.

I want to whinge and scream and shout a little as, now that the infection appears to have gone, so has some of my regular hearing ability in my right ear. I appear to have taken a hearing loss hit. Tests show I have lost some of the upper register; the world seems duller, echo location mobility is now difficult, so I am now walking slowly too, getting a little more lost in places I am usually very comfortable traversing or navigating. I hope to god it comes back but I also seem to have a degree of tinitus and it's feeling rather permanent now the wax gunge has gone.

Am I pissed off? You bet. Am i mourning the loss of my hearing? Undoubtedly, just want to curl up. Feel rather damaged and stil hurting in that area. Doctors say there is nothing I can do but wait. So wait I do.

There you go. A personal whinge. As disability creeps further in on me, I am reminded of the inadequacies of the so-called 'social model'. A cute idea with a dogma that is often interpreted, or misinterpreted, as not allowing any medical considerations in. Aww, it's more complex than that but I can't be arsed to go into it right now.

Meanwhile, anyone else been thru similar? Been deaf for a while after an infection and got your hearing back? Tell me about it. I need comforting. Hot chocolate and warm words please.

So much happy news besides ... but I'll go into that another time. It's what's keeping me afloat.

Harry Potter

2007-07-14T10:06:00.000Z

Have you ordered your Daisy version of Harry Potter yet?

A guide dog free zone

2007-07-10T15:20:00.000Z

Thanks to all for your comments after my post about retiring my guide dog.

Right. Well I did it. He's gone. Liam finally retired. I am now without dog for the first time in 16 years.

I was petrified at the idea of giving him up. But, now he's gone, I am kind of beginning to appreciate not having a dog now. It's a nice break after 16 years not to have a knee high hairy golden shadow that needs feeding and putting out every few hours. It's now down to me and my trusty white cane.

so on my first day without, I turned up to work especially early. It's funny but having to use a cane feels slightly less dignified and makes me feel a little helpless. I don't think I used to feel like that when I was a full time cane user though. I know loads of people use them with no hassle and no wish to get a dog. I turned up early so no one would see me walking through reception and down the corridors in my new inanimate mobility aid world.

Tip tap, smash. Tip tap, smash. Actually I wasn't that bad ... I know the place so well that I could get by without barely using the cane at all. I imagine people think blind people use white canes in their own homes. Nah. If you live in a place and know it well, you don't need a cane. No self respecting blind person would use a cane to get from the lounge to the kitchen or vice versa. Similarly I could pretty much get by at work without a cane but there are so many people around that I think it's best to keep it in my hand and remind people I won't easily get out of their way if they charge towards me. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a health and safety concern.

Not much to say really other than I'm doing better than I thought. And have even had some mobility training around my home area. never thought I'd be able to find my way back home. With a dog it's a piece of piss - he knows which house is mine so will just walk up the front path to my door without me asking. With a white cane, well, it's two trees then find the hedge on the right. Cross the road at this point. Pass two skinny trees, three severe metal lamp posts that could really hurt ... and then find the big tree. Double back slightly and it's the second gate on the right.

You have to remember much more if you're a cane user. Not so good for a mid 30s fella who's definitely having classic thirty-something memory issues. Was that the second tree or the first? Not a matter of life or death but more a matter of home or someone elses's home.

My guide dog is about to retire

2007-06-27T05:03:00.000Z

My guide dog Liam, who I've had for seven and a half years, will be retiring at the end of this week. He's now nine years old. Liam is a bit of a stressy sensitive dog so this seems the best time to retire him.

So, what does this mean. It means that Damon has to go back to using a white cane - something he hasn't done since leaving school in 1991.

Scared? Me?

Guide dogs make walking much quicker. They anticipate obstacles in front of you and correct your route before you bang into it, often without you even knowing. With a white cane, however, you don't know that an object is there until you whack into it. That's the main difference. Also white cains don't anticipate you might want to go into Sainsburys because you've been there so many times before! You have to really have your wits about you if you're a white cane user, concentration mode on high, be happy for journeys to take longer ... and of course it's much more of a physical and joint-aching experience sweeping that stick left to right constantly.

So. Liam retires. Might even be today I'm not sure. There are a couple of legal documents that the new owner, my friend Ewan, has to complete before we can 'do the transaction'.

But won't you get a new dog straight away, Damon?

Sadly not on this occasion. The waiting list is long and it seems my district team are over-stretched due to staff absence.

The positive thing here is that by relinquishing Liam, I am then classed as a Priority One. I am therefore much closer to the top of the list than had I been with dog. I didn't feel I could hold onto Liam much longer though because his sensitivity and stress is displaying quite a lot lately. He needs to retire and start a new life. A real unselfish move, eh? Well it's taken a while to come to this decision. I was about to give him up in April but then my friend Sara died and I just felt I didn't want to lose another big part of my life so soon. I feel like I'm jumping into a big deep dark hole.

When might you get a new dog then?

Good question. It may be around November time if I'm lucky. That leaves me 4 or 5 clear months without a dog. Possibly longer.

I expect my independence to dip and I forsee spending more time at home or my cash layout on taxis getting higher. All at a time when my fixed rate mortgage is about to end and go up in price by about 400 pounds a month. I am going to be so broke!

But it's little things, ya know, like leaving my desk at work ... just popping for a coffee. From this distance, today, it suddenly feels like a big chore with a cane. And, as I said earlier, you get none of that animal intuition from a cane - if I were to walk into the coffee bar at work, Liam would navigate me round people, misplaced chairs, tables etc, and take me directly to the counter where he knows I'm used to going to. And ya know, I'd barely even notice! With a cane, I'll have to bang into everything first before correcting my route. This could mean banging into a few people on the way too - moving obstacles as I like to think of them. But I'm sure my senses will sharpen up again and I'll start having to try and detect obstacles and people. Yes, blindies can do this - obstacle sense they call it. It's not as special as Channel 4 recently tried to make out in their superkid documentary, it's just about understanding the sound around you and the echoes. Layer of sound, muffling versus clearness, slight pressure on the eardrum when someone walks past and disrupts the sound path, etc. stuff like that. It's hard to put into words but it does feel like a sixth sense that you really only notice when you have to - i.e. when you go blind.

Anyhoo. Am not going to be unhappy about Liam retiring because he needs to and I'm pleased for him.

If any long term cane users want to post here and tell me I'm a total wimp then please do! :) There are loads of people who choose to stay with a white cane and would never go near a dog. In fact, the vast majority of blind people use canes over dogs. There is an art to it but I've lost that art. That's the issue today. Truth is that suddenly everything will be different again and I will need to readjust. Aaargggh!!!! Oh and there's also real potential to enter into a few undignified smash-ups with a cane, less regular than when you're using a dog, well, especially when starting out again. I'm sure I'll document them here with red face.

Wayfinder Access: audio demonstration

2007-06-27T04:27:00.000Z

A few days ago I wrote a blog entry about Wayfinder Access - a GPS direction-finding solution ... a bit of software you can put on your mobile phone. It's meant for people with visual impairments and is optimised for those who have a mobile speech synth/screenreader like Talks or MobileSpeak.

Kate pointed out quite rightly that it has potential benefits for wobblers too, people with Cerebral Palsy whose direction finding abilities are somewhat crap because of all that spacial awareness built-in malfunction ... I hope I used the right medical terms? I think Kate refers to herself as Map Disabled.

Anyhoo, I've just found an MP3 on the net; an audio demonsstration of the product done earlier this month by a fella in North America called Earl Harrison. You've gotta love the internet!

mp3 Audio demonstration of Wayfinder Access. (if you click the link directly you will be waiting a minute
or two for the audio to load into your PC. Best idea if to save it to your hard disk so you have more control over it and maybe even transfer it to your iPod. right click on the link and 'save target as' and do your usual saving routine you'll be familiar with I'm sure)

What you'll hear -- Earl sspends about 5 or 10 minutes going through the product in his house. You can choose the destination you are travelling to at home, and have the route calculated before you leave your front door. (I think you can also browse the route and see its twists and turns before leaving home too but Earl doesn't show this)

It's crucial to know that you can use Wayfinder either on foot as a pedestrian or in a car. There are two different modes on Wayfinder - the 'in car' mode turns it into a gizmo very similar to Tom Tom with that classic SatNav cool calm controlled female voice we're used to. In 'pedestrian mode' it falls back to using the speech synth you have on your phone because speech synths can give you much more and better information than the built-in female satnav voice just mentioned. (speech synths can read street names, for instance, built-in satnav clear voices can only say pre-recorded limited info such as "in half a mile, turn left")

So, after Earl has setup the route in his house, he gets in a car and we go into car mode. We hear what Earl, as a blind passenger, gets from the experience. He can help navigate.

One thing blind people often have a problem with is giving good directions to car drivers if, for instance, we want to get back home. A pedestrian and driving experience can be much different hence this function gives you real control and the ability to stop faffing around and tell your mate exactly where you want to go, giving directions as you go along.

"But Damon, what does the front of this pub look like? There are a few here but I can't see the names because it's a bit dark"

"I don't blinking well know!"

atnav will at least take you to within about 30 feet of its front door.

Note there is also a 'taxi mode' but I don't yet know what this does. Remember I'm writing all this as someone who has googled about Wayfinder and not yet used the darn thing. The version I need isn't out for a week or two.

Next Earl gets out of his car and plots another route on his mobile that he is going to attempt as a pedestrian. We hear him walking along with his guide dog Patrick being told by the phone where to turn and how many feet until the destination on a regular basis.

So there ya go. It's deep blind tech so you may want to skip to the bit where Earl is in his car if you're not too bothered about the menu system on the phone and would rather just jump right to him using Wayfinder in action.

God the net is great! I've been waiting for someone to post an audio demonstration and here it is! Maybe I'll do one when I get the gizmo.

Any feedback or thoughts appreciated! And if anyone knows of any other audio demos, or is about to do one, email me or post here. I'd like to blog it.

nostalgic tv blast

2007-06-21T07:17:00.000Z

The Oddball Couple. Fleabag

robotic stooges

Baggy Pants and the Nitwits

haleys' comets

Oh no! I'm experiencing rapid cycling of old remembered TV shows this morning. Lisa, if you're reading this, you want to thank your lucky starts you won't have to listen to me today wittering on about ...

Baggy Pants and the Nitwits -- Do you remember this? I think it was on air in the UK around 1978 or 1979. It was two cartoons shove together in one double bill. Baggy Pants was a Chaplin-esque cat who waddled around a lot and did silent movie type prat falls with his blank unfathomable little cat face. The Nitwits starred Tyrone, a retired superhero who solved mysteries with the help of his walking cane, Elmo, and his handbag-wielding wife Gladys. From the web it looks like this was a derivative too, maybe from the Laugh In. A half hour cartoon. The Nitwits was the main show for me, very funny, quite dry for a toon aimed at kids if I recall.

The Robotic Stooges -- bizarre cartoon version of The Three Stooges: Larry, Curly and Mo. They had extendable robotic limbs like Inspector Gadget. Huh? The link here will take you through to a show that aired in America called The Skatebirds - for, apparently, it is from this Banana Splits-like mid 70s show that the toon came from before it was spun out on its own. Why did this cartoon ever come into being?

The Oddball Couple -- Again, doubtless based on classic sitcom The Odd Couple, this starred a cat and a dog in business together - or did they live together, I forget. The cat, Spiffy, was suited and booted whereas the dog, Fleabag, was a bit of a scruff. Oh just think of those cat and dog / class war antics? Sing with me: "Oh the oddball couple are a couple of a couple of oddballs - eggballs"

Other stuff? Do you remember a weekly show on BBC1 for kids called Going Places? It urged people to write in for fact sheets about stuff going on around the UK that kids should go out and do. Could it have been presented by Su Ingle and Peter Pervis? Or was Su Ingle only on Wildtrack with Tony Soper? The following link is to a page on TV Cream featuring Going Places and Wildtrack - though here they call it We're Going Places which I think might be wrong. But what do I know.

Brilliantly on the above page I came across the quote: "DIFFERENCE OF OPINION HERE, GEOFF". Can you remember where you heard that? Answer at the bottom of this blog ... but you'll need to turn the screen upside down to read it. Geoffrey Wheeler, not just a quiz show voiceover, but also the man who urged us to get our Come and Praise hymn books out while listening to 'A service for schools' on Radio 4 on a Thursday morning. I learnt from that show about how the Soviets persecuted Christians and people hid their bibles and everything! Sing: "jet planes meeting in the air to be refueled are the things I know so well". Wheeler was also on Songs of Praise later - funny how he had time to fit in a show based on gambling around his christian commitments. Dig my biting topical satire 30 years on? I'm really getting up to speed at 36. STOP PRESS, this website reveals that he invented Winner Takes All too. Oh I've given away the answer. I love that there is a Wikipedia page about it. Most depressed to see that the talentless Bobby Davro did a version of the quiz for Challenge TV in 1997.

Aww, it's going round in my head now: "Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the silk inside a chestnut shell"

Rapid cycling. Mark Curry was in Bugsy Malone. He played the producer ... and the ginger haired girl who pushed Blousie out of the way to do an outrageous audition was Bonnie Langford!

Finally this morning. I discovered in my web wanderings today that The Beatles had an animated series from 1965 to 1969 in the US. I'm sure it must have been shown in the UK? I've never seen it - though obviously have seen Yellow Submarine and it's ridiculous swirly colourful trumpet-nosedness. And, in another name blast from the past, I discover that Lance Percival did the voices for Paul and Ringo. I vaguely remember his flopppy blonde hair? Have I got the right guy? From panel shows in the 70s? I dunno, maybe from that afternoon gameshow The Cartoonists that had Bill Tidy, Willie Rushton and others being funny. Rapid rapid cycling. Lance: could be a twin of Tony Hart?

Question: who else had a little crush on Tiger from The Double Deckers? And what film do I remember The Double Deckers crossing over into?

Gotta go now. Is anyone on my wavelength?

When was stuff invented?

2007-06-21T05:05:00.000Z

I have this idea that absailing was invented somewhere around 1979. And I'm sure this is because Blue Peter did an item about it. There seemed to be a proliferation of absailing items on TV at the time as producers thought it'd be visually interesting to get their presenters to slide down a geared rope thing.

I wonder if it existed before then? That was when it hit my radar / landscape.

Anyhoo, the point is that because I learnt about it in 1979, in my head it was new, that's when I date it back to - even if the Romans were absailing off their big white buildings.

Equally I date the invention of the word 'shit' to about 1977 - the first time I heard it in the playground and went home and said it to my mum. How was I to know? I was surprised my Mum was angry because as far as I knew, it was just some cool new thing the older boys said. How did she know what the kids at Iwade County Primary School were inventing?

Went to see Grease, the musical, at the cinema in 1978 when it came out. It was a birthday treat. My sister and I were obsessed with the songs afterwards and Mum and Dad got the cassette and we played it in the car all the time.

Shocked was I when I listened a little closer to the track Greased Lightning and heard John Travolta sing, "You know that it ain't shit when you're getting lots of tit".

"Mum," I shouted through from the back seat, "Do you think John Travolta knows that's a swear word?" The sexual bit re: 'tit' bypassed me for a few years more.

How had I not come across that word until 1977? It's like the fug of childhood and brain development cushioned me. I'm sure they didn't say words like that on TV around that time - no not even the Sex Pistols. Well they certainly didn't on Jackanory anyway, I can tell you that.

I wonder if my Nephew Cameron knows the word yet at 7. I wonder if my sister will be angry if I ask him. "Hello Uncle Damon, are you still weird today? Are you going to start talking about polar bears again?"

"Cameron. Just wondering. What does S H I T spell?"

Am I sounding like Dennis Norden? Trust me, in 2025 I'll be hosting a new version of Looks Familiar on daytime ITV - if TV exists then. TV, I'm sure, will be de-invented soon.

Wayfinder Access - GPS direction-finding for blind people

2007-06-14T16:06:00.000Z

OK. This is cool. I've previously written about how visually impaired people are now really starting to use GPS to give an extra dimension of direction-finding in an article on Ouch: Don't scrimp on your access, you're a long time dead (15 March 2007)

I vaguely mentioned a product called Wayfinder in the article - couldn't do too much on it as it was on the BBC, no commercials please.

Since writing it though, a new product has been developed, it's called Wayfinder Access, read more about it here: Wayfinder Access on the TalkNav site

They've taken the original product aimed at the sighted market, worked with the blind community and turned it into a product that now speaks more (though you have to also be running the Talks or Mobile Speak mobile screenreader software) and worked it up into an interesting product.

That said, I've not had chance to test it out. But I believe it speaks more, gives more relevant info to people who can't see - such as what Points Of Interest are in the vicinity: pub across the road, cinema round the corner,church 100 yards further down the street etc.

So, going back to the start with a bit more detail.

Blind people are so gadgety and tech obsessed you wouldn't believe it - hardly surprising for a group whose computer is their pen, their newspaper, their accessible mail, their browsable shopping experience and more. Blind peple surely have the best gadgets?

Lots of us are now carrying around mobile phones with a bit of talking 'screenreader' software on it, e.g. Nuance Talks or the new Mobile Speak from Code Factory. These products can only work on certain phones: Symbian platform phones with Talks and I think Windows mobile platform with Mobile Speak (don't know enough about this product yet as it's fairly new). I use Nuance Talks on my Nokia N73.

To spell it out, screenreaders are bits of talking navigation software. They make your phone talk and have intelligent ways of helping you access the visual concepts. Blind people might just say "I've got a talking mobile" though :)

SMS, web surfing, creating and using phonebooks, they're the things visually impaired people typically use speech enhanced phones for.

Wayfinder Access, once installed on yer talking mobile, allows you to plot routes from A to B. You can review them at home before you leave if ya like. You also need a GPS satellite receiver. Mine, a very slimline and small Holux GPS receiver, is about the size of a packet of chewing gum, you can see it in the Ouch article I linked to at the top of this entry. It speaks to my phone using a Blue Tooth wireless connection. Easy as pie.

You apparently need to walk outside with your GPS reciever pointed skywards to lock onto the GPS satellites up there in low level orbit. Once it has a lock you can simply put the receiver in your jeans pocket ... so don't go imagining you need a big visible dish on your head. It's all very discrete. You won't look like a crippled Borg monster.

I'm going to be really interested to get this product and start using it. The big thing for a blind person about going out is usually that you need to know where you're going and what you want before you leave home. Mostly. The GPS map software will allow me to be a bit more adhoc, flexible, relaxed. I'll be able to find cafes that I didn't know were there, walk around and then ask the GPS phone to point me to the nearest tube station. Maybe even walk through a big wide-open park ... wide open areas with no pathways or landmarks are usually next to impossible to navigate through.

I'm getting mixed reports as to whether these systems work well in built-up areas though. This will be interesting to test. London could be a satellite blackspot for pedestrians. GPS receivers need 'line of sight' communication with satellites.

The next big thing being talked about is 3G direction finding. i.e. not just the use of a GPS but also extra help from mobile phone transmitters that, through a process of triangulation, can help you set coordinates in satellite blackspots ... which also includes indoors! GPS certainly won't work in Brent Cross or Blue Water shopping malls now will they. Be great when they do!I'll just drop a Point Of Interest marker outside each shop I want to visit then I'll be notified of them as I walk past them in future - not disimilar to what eyes and brains do if you think about it (oh, just for the sake of clarity, you can drop markers with Wayfinder too, plus share them via SMS to your mates)

Hope this was interesting or useful.

See my above Ouch article for more on the excellent Loadstone GPS project: A group of blind fellas who are creating a FREE piece of GPS software for mobile phones. At present you can only drop and share markers though, there are no maps so you can't tap in a postcode and get a route spurted out at you. Very useful though, take a look.

Wayfinder costs approx 260 pounds currently.

My first massage, ever.

2007-05-22T07:19:00.000Z

Have been meaning to write about this for a few days now. Last Thursday I had my first ever massage. That is to say, my first ever professionally implemented massage.

I was really unsure of it! I knew I needed to do some serious relaxing after my rather tough couple of months and thought that maybe a good work over would help. But there are certain issues.

At 6:30,, Ella turned up at my door. Kristina (girlfriend ... keep up) let her in. Ella had 'done' her before. She found her on a website for women; they will not visit male clients for safety reasons unless a female partner is also there. Good precaution ... if your clients aren't the next Rose and Fred West, that is. Luckily for Ella, Kristina and I only really have one perversion at the moment - our obsession for the TV drama Lost.

I went first. And eek, everyone, did you know you have to take your clothes off? I wore just my boxer shorts! You can betcha that if everyone knew that particular detail then their trade would fall off pretty darn swiftly don't ya think?

I ripped my jeans off. The ones I got in Macys. Threw them on the couch with my T-shirt, resisted the urge to dance for her and then got on the massage table thing she'd brought along. Face down. Back upwards. Putting face through a hole thing at the end.

Felt awkward. Didn't know where to put my arms. OK, they were alongside me but I kept wanting to move them. Too self aware. I had towels over the top of me, so Ella exposed only the bits she was working on at a given moment. Why am I writing this in so much detail? I'm aware I'm probably the only person who'd never had a massage so I'll skip the details as you'll already know them.

Being a man, I was, um, a little anxious. I've only ever received bodily attention from former partners. I'm pleased to say that my worst fear, an unforgiving and obvious arousal, did not happen. I'd got quite anxious about this before hand. As all men know, this can happen at the most inappropriate of times and doesn't necessarily corelate with mental arousal. So can be utterly meaningless, not a window into a sick little mind. Anyhoo, it didn't happen. I was probably too nervous anyway.

She worked on my back. Mmmm. Backbone clicked fairly early on, releasing a bit of pressure. Nice. I gradually got into it and the hour went by in a whirlwind as I laid there, taking interest and note in what she was doing to me. It was actually just really fascinating but also really lovely that a stranger can come along and be so gentle and personal with you.

I had a full body massage. I know I like a good back rubbing but wasn't sure I'd like the rest. I was particularly surprised to note that the stomach massage she gave me was particularly relaxing ... and arms too. Arms, lead to shoulders, lead to neck and back, I guess. I weirdly felt the tension slipping away as she worked on these areas. Yay for the internet - I knew we'd find a use for it one day.

The next few days afterwards I felt really relaxed. A lot of tension had gone and the lack of bodily tension affects your mental state too ... and that's why I'm thinking of having another one in a couple of weeks.

Two blogs worthy of a read

2007-05-17T05:33:00.000Z

Couple of recommended blogs I wanted to share - though they're perhaps not great bedfellows.

• Tubular: Therese Odell's 'Lost' blog - fantastic in-depth analysis of everyone's favourite island-based drama Lost. Therese is a great writer and a great thinker filtering a mass amount of Lost theories and bringing her passion worldly knowledge to the show. Her blog is part of the Houston Chronicle website.

• Pole to Polar: The secret life of a manic depressive - Seaneen, a 21 year old woman living in London, documents her big highs and her terrible lows. She's not good at the moment. Look after yourself Seaneen.

Who needs sleep?

2007-05-17T05:03:00.000Z

Hello. Thursday morning. Early. I'm going through a ridiculous period of insomnia at the moment. I keep waking at just after 3am. I actually rather enjoy having this time to myself in the middle of the night - I'm up, as you can see, surfing the web on my brokened-up computer. Trouble is that when I get home in the evenings I'm totally knackered, fall asleep on the couch and barely get to speak with Kristina.

"Damon. Do you fancy going out tonight-----"

"---Too tired. Sorry."

Insomnia - it's a relationship killer. I live completely the wrong end of the day. Hey, we're going back to the blind people have 30-hour internal body clocks discussion aren't we.

Claire, Nathan and little Ella are coming at the weekend. Am gonna break out the cocktails and try to tempt Nathan I think. Seriously into cocktails at the moment as have just been to Cotton's Rum Shack in Camden where they serve up generous 'tails wiv da jerk Caribbean food. Heartily recommended. GO THERE! Have an enormous amount of fun on me, won't ya?

Sara's funeral - April 20, 2007

2007-05-05T08:00:00.000Z

I have been writing this for two weeks now. On and off. Wanted to capture Sara's funeral as best I could. Read on.

It's two days since Sara's funeral (Fri 20 April, 2007). I'm sitting here, Sunday morning, wanting to call her up and tell her about my stressful and emotional day like I would have done - but then I remember. And there's a big gaping hole that you just can't do anything about. There's no fixing it, no bringing her back, it feels like a brand new world I'm in and I'm feeling rather lost in it.

I nearly wrote that the funeral was the worst day of my life. But it wasn't. I can't put my finger on it. I cried a lot but we DID celebrate her and it DID feel good. Sara's parents, Lynn and Denise, were both totally amazing. Stunning in fact. Sara would DEFINITELY have been pleased with the day and I know would have been reaching out to hug them with love and pride.

The service started at 2:45pm. I arrived outside Coychurch Cremotorium 10 minutes beforehand with Nathan. I had been finding it difficult, wondering when the floodgates were going to open. Then Warren came over, said hello and that was the moment. I hugged him and we hel deach other and both wept in the sunshine a few yards from the chapel door for a couple of minutes. I'd not seen Wozza since Sara died and, well,
it was a relief to be able to hug someone who loved her as much as I did.

Neil from Blazie handed us Braille hymn sheets before we went in. Non-capitalised Braille of course! Sara had campaigned vigorously to stop the introduction of capital letters a few years earlier - something of a big issue in the blind world that readers of print will find hard to appreciate. The print version of the service sheet had a picture of Sara receiving her degree at her graduation ceremony in 1993 (for the record, a BSc in Psychology from Loughbrough University)

Neil Jarvis was outside the crematorium. If I remember correctly, Neil was replaced by Sara at Blazie when he left to work in New Zealand. They had become firm friends in the last three years and I hope to get to know him a little better now. Gotta keep those memories alive, keep her influence going.

The service was around half an hour long. Sara was brought in with 'Somewhere only we know' by Keane accompanying her. We were at the front. My tears kept flowing but I managed to keep relatively quiet.

'I vow to thee my country' was hymn number one. Hymn number two 'The lord's my shepherd'. I've always found the first hymn a very moving tune anyway and discovered pretty quickly I was unable to sing much of it. I tried. But I made a point of staying really strong through the second hymn and sang, I think, EVERY word.

The female minister said some nice words about Sara guided by her mother Denise. She encaptulated a lot of what Sara was passionate about. It was kinda nice to know that, yes, we were definitely talking about the same Sara I knew.

An email that I received from a BlindKiss listener was read out. It seemed to encaptulate the point of the talkshow/web project. As well as having fun and sharing experiences, it was born to make a lot of people feel good about themselves. Sara's voice, passion and humour had helped this listener understand his new life as a visually impaired person. He had also found his partner through BlindKiss and had had children. The person who emailed thanked Sara for making it happen for him.

Her Dad then got up to speak. He did really well starting with how they had been devastated when Sara lost a lot of her sight at 5 years old but that she had proven that it was no way an end to life. He also talked about her humour, her love of a good Bollinger, her endearing expensive tastes and how she would whip out her white cane to queue-jump when they were at theme parks and on holiday in New York last December.

Then the final music played. And Sara left us. Howard Jones 'New song'. Sara used to be a member of his fan club when she was a young girl and to this day played New Song very loudly on her massive stereo speakers as she got ready to go out for an evening.

Bless her heart. Sara it's just too difficult to imagine you're not here so I'm going to imagine you're still with us if that's OK with you. You still influence what I do and say, you're here in my head.

Oh. I didn't tell anyone but I was carrying a small rucksack around with me all day. Gary asked what was in it but I told him he might not want to know. Inside was a teddy bear that Sara bought me when I was 19. I called it Eric. It has a little loveheart for a nose and across its paws the words 'I love you' - words from a time when we were very much in love. These things don't always work out but the love was still there ... a different kind of love now, probably much deeper, more caring and supportive than our time together as teenage sweethearts. We were very good friends, brother and sister, more. She refused to call him Eric cos she hated the name: she called him Ez for short. And he was there. And yes call me a sap ... but these things kind of matter don't they. Eric is sitting safely in my wardrobe at the moment, looking up at me every time I open the door. I tink Sara would have been amused and a little delighted that I had brought him along.

We then went to the Haywain pub. I'd been there with Sara on New Year's eve 2003 into 2004. She got up a few times to karaoke as I watched and listened. It was a great night. And she was being very supportive to me as it was clear I was splitting up with my then girlfriend of nine years. I think we recorded our last shows that week.

I sat with a group of friends from various aspects of Sara's life. I think we all felt that from that point on we needed to attempt a bit of cheer and send Sara off well. Her Ddad came over and insisted we all have a drink to celebrate Sara. I didn't feel like one, I have to say but I had a few. Sara would have wanted a celebration not a comiseration so I drank and ate. And, ya know, it helped talking about her and laughing with the memories.

How Sara's mum and dad remained so positive I'll never know. They were outstanding, amazing. Lynn told me later that it all hit him again in the evening - it comes in waves. WE oscilate between disbelief and devastation and wanting to preserve her memory, making her life meaningful by being positive now she's gone (Sara liked the word oscilate).

Sara Sara Sara.

Two weeks on, we're back in the present now. I've been going to work. The first week back was difficult: I couldn't concentrate on anything. I've started to move on though. I can write again from this week on it seems, rather useful in my profession. But I'm still dropping Sara into lots of conversations - everything reminds me of her. I'm sure that, for those who didn't know her, it might be a bit confusing or annoying that I keep mentioning my mate Sara. I want to. It keeps it all going, doesn't it. Makes life a bit more understandable. She made her mark though, she won't easily be forgotten.

And now ... well we've got to work out a fitting lasting tribute. There are a group of us keen to do this and we've had a few little chats and a few ideas have come up. We've got to come together on this though.

It's May 5. Sara died a month ago today. I got a bit angry when the calendar flipped from April into May because she hadn't made this month, things were moving on without her. Unfair I thought. Every Thursday that goes by I'm paying particular attention to. Every time April 5 is mentioned I get a jarring go through me. Every morning on the way to work I look at my mobile phone and wonder if she'd somehow receive my text if I sent it but then put it back down.

I'm going to go now. Thank you for reading. And again, tell your friends and family how much you love them today.

Sara Morgan 1972 - 2007

2007-04-11T07:08:00.000Z

This is very hard to write. My friend, Sara Morgan, died on Thursday 5 April just before the Easter weekend. I found out yesterday.

It's very strange turning the radio and TV on and discovering that everything else is carrying on as normal because nothing is at all normal now. Sara was always there for me, a very important part of my life. All my love, warmth and sympathies go out to her family at this time and anyone else who knew and loved her. She was a powerhouse of wit and intelligence with great talent and passion.

You may have known her at Bridgend School, Chorley Wood or Worcester College (Now New College, Worcester). More recently you may have come across her professionally through Blazie though you may remember her as an irritant to the Braille Authority (BAUK) through her campaigning or as a regular on Radio 4's In Touch programme for visually impaired people.

there are more still who will know her as one of the voices on the BlindKiss talk show - my co-host. All the shows we ever did are still there to listen to. She was far more popular than me and received literally hundreds of emails during the lifetime of the show 2001-2004.

I first met Sara back in 1986. I was a pupil at Worcester College for the Blind and, in that year, the school merged with the girls school known as Chorley Wood School for girls with little or no sight (great name).

Sara was the girl who clip clopped round the school corridors in her heels and was known as the Welsh Dragon. She held forth with confidence and was very well known. She later became the head girl in 1989. It's at that time we became teenage sweethearts and were inseperable for the whole of that year before she went to Loughbrough University.

At school she proved her remarkable intelligence, was a life force and a bright spark. God knows why but she took Computer Studies, Maths and Further Maths (known by her as Furry Maths) at A-level. She had amazing logic and would probably have made a great diplomat too.

I remember feeling incredibly priveleged that she was my girlfriend and was completely in love with her.

Boarding school haunted her for the rest of her life. Not in a bad way, you understand, just that it was such an important experience in all our lives that she was still very much anchored in that community right up til the end. Almost every time we spoke we'd refer back to people or events at Worcester. Teenage memories. 80s memories. She was something of a superstar back then, a school celebrity and it's no wonder she held onto those memories so tightly. Even now in 2007 she loved nothing more than for a group of us ex-Worcester students to get together in London for a meal and drinks. In later years her passions were technology, music, food, travel, campaigning and she loved her little Niece Bronwyn.

Am trying to think of some specific events or happenings that would sum her up.

She had a great sense of humour. At school, she once replaced my tube of toothpaste with a tube of tomato puree for a larf. She didn't catch me out though because she'd been talking and laughing about doing it for weeks and was hanging around behind me to see what would happen. Too obvious Sara, not a natural practical joker, try harder ... I loved her for it though.

She had a great love for 80s music, like me. All the pop, all the rock. God knows why but one of her favourite bands was Rush - a canadian band who sang Spirit of radio. I remember her going to see them live and Marillion too. The albums that will most remind me of her are Misplaced Childhood (Marillion) and Wild (erasure). The song we share is probably 'Blue Silver' by Duran Duran, a dark and haunting 80s pop song - the last track on the Rio album. Thunder Only Happens When It's Raining by Fleetwood Mac will always remind me of her ... plus the out-and-out pop that we used to sing at the top of our voices when we got together to play old records.

There's so much to say but I can't sit here and write an opus to her ... I've barely gone beyond schooldays and there's so much more to tell ... though I might create this opus given a bit more time.

I can't believe I'm sitting here writing this.

I keep thinking about Warren, a mutual friend of ours. I introduced the two of them in my little flat in Neasden in 1998. I had just moved to London and was feeling dreadfully homesick and thinking I'd made the wrong move. The two of them came to stay on my living room floor to make me feel better and became firm friends. OK so I know I make crap bacon sandwiches! Wozza mate, I know I can't replace her but I'm always here. We'll work out a way of celebrating her life and keep her memory burning brightly.

I'm hurting. Very badly. I can only imagine what her family are feeling at the moment.

I don't want to talk about her medical history. It's a complicated one. She wouldn't want me to talk about that. But she had a way of rising above it, something I'm going to try and do better now with my own complicated medical stuff.

Sara I can't believe you've gone. I keep wanting to pick up the phone and speak to you. And you never came and sorted out my wireless internet problems ... who's going to do that now?

Love to her mum Denise, brothers Neil and Sean and her father Lynn. I'm looking forward to telling you about the Sara I knew.

And to everyone else ... go and listen to Sara on BlindKiss ... she was extremely proud and passionate about the shows we did together.

And please, everyone, look after the ones you love. Give them a call today. Let them know you love them.

Friday's podcast party

2007-04-02T05:24:00.001Z

Did I really get back at 2:30am Saturday morning? My head the next day seemed to suggest so.

WE've been doing the Ouch Podcast for a year now. Friday night we went out for a bit of a party to celebrate. It started in Notting Hill and ended, very late, in Shepherds Bush. But what can I remember?

Present were: Roving Rob Crossan, Mat Fraser, Liz Carr, Emma, Lisa, Jo Church and me. We were hoping Steve P would turn up and the other Jo but sadly they couldn't join us. Liz's PA was around but I'm not sure we're allowed to talk about her?

Great night! Very funny. Can't really remember what we all talked about ... maybe we just grinned and dribbled. I remember: beer, Gin and Tonic, champagne, bit of food, exploring Liz's powerchair and REALLY trying to empathise with her plight, talking to Rob about his radio project and possible new job, watching Jo effortlessly and accidentally pulling, Jo coming into the men's toilets with me, singing and talking about music in the Shepherds Bush place we ended up in, asking the DJ to play some Happy Mondays (god knows why). OH and I have memories of Liz being turned away by the bouncers in the second place we ended up in? She might mention it on the podcast I guess ... we're recording it tonight and it should be up on the site Thursday.

I'm sure I'm gonna learn of any dreadful things I said Friday night when I get into the office today. Ick. Don't think I was too embarrassing though.

Lost: Expose

2007-04-02T05:24:00.000Z

Just a quick nod towards last night's episode of Lost on Sky One. Exposé. It was an episode featuring Nikki and Paolo. Spoiler alert: they were buried alive.

Bit of an annoying episode because it appeared to live almost totally outside of the wider Lost story arc: a self contained episode.

We caught a few new things though, or maybe just one. We saw Juliet and Ben in The Pearl station/hatch. It was a flashback from soon after the plane crash - J and B were plotting to get Jack to operate on Ben. Obviously Ben's spinal growth did exist but I still had a bit of a funny feeling about how or why he had the thing until I saw this episode. At least we see Juliet apparently on Ben's side ... I'm still not sure about those two, what their "history" is (we know they "have history" thanks to Mr Friendly in the episode where Jack operates). But Juliet does appear to be at odds with The Others: she wants out, she gave Jack a video message asking him to kill Ben during the operation, she killed Danny, she was about to be given a death sentence according to The Others "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" legal process but thanks to Jack ended up with just a branding instead.

Nikki and Paolo. I think they're gone for good now. Even the writers Carlton and Damon appear to want to write them off as a bit of a mistake according to their podcast last week.

Yes Damon, we understand you're obsessed with Lost. You're up at 6:35 on a Monday morning blogging about it ... when you should be in bed because you're working til 10pm tonight (new podcast recording tonight).

Lost: The man from Tallahassee

2007-03-27T07:13:00.000Z

I don't want to appear as if I'm some kind of Lost obsessive but I am. There's no escaping it (as the Beatnuts once sang).

What a fantastic episode. So many questions left in the mind:

Q: Was Ben ever going to let Jack and Juliet leave by submarine?

Q: Now that the submarine has been blown up by Locke, are there really no other ways off the island as Ben said? And no other ways of communicating with the outside world?

Q: Are Ben and Locke pleased that no one can leave the island now? Well, if that's true (see above question).

Q: Are The Others (AKA The Hostiles) some kind of pseudo scientific cult? Ben and his gang recruit people to join the islanders and he seems to hope they will learn to love their new life / not want to leave.

Q: Locke said that Ben's way of life on the island was 'cheating' - he was referring, we think, to the relative civilisation they have. What does this mean? Does he prefer a purist human-interacting-with-island approach where they commune with the environment without walls, a roof or refrigerators to put chicken in?

Q: Is Russoe an Other?

Q: If 'The Purge' was a fight between The Others and the Dharma Initiative ... what are their differences? Are The Others a breakaway group? Or maybe one stands for religion and the other for science? Which is which?

Q: GO Googling for Hanso Adoptions ... you'll see there is a lot of talk about family and belonging. Is this what the island experiment (if that's what it is) is all about?

Q: Parents. A constant theme growing ever stronger now that Locke's dad is on the island too. ALl of the Losties have wronged their parents ... except Locke. Mikhail referred to Kate and Sayid as 'flawed' in the Par avion episode. Is being 'flawed' about having wronged your parents? Certainly we know Sayid and Kate were not on Jacob's List. It's unclear but Mikhail said he rememebred Locke ... does this imply that Locke isn't flawed and may well be on Jacob's List? We also know for sure Jack isn't on Jacob's List from an earlier episode and Jack dobbed his Dad in to the hospital ethics board.

Q: Are all the parents on the island?
Q: Is Walt's Mum really dead? Is she on the island? Ditto Jack and Claire's Dad?
SO many questions!

Sun Pat Peanut Butter

2007-03-24T16:45:00.000Z

Do you remember the olde TV advert for Sun Pat?

The jingle sang: "Sun Pat Peanut Butter for your daily spread ..."

It kept running round my head while I was at the supermarket earlier. Damn annoying. What do they call them, 'ear worms'? Tunes you can't get off your brain.

Then I started thinking about the Ringo Starr one: "Our son Pat ... goes round in circles like a cat. Has a bat, etc etc" (I've not quite perfected the words here)

It feels quite cold this afternoon in London. Smashed a bottle of gin at the counter in the supermarket ... and whaddya know, the nice staff came and replaced it for us fre of charge!

I'm getting worryingly into my gin since New York.

I saw the Man from Tallahassee last night! Oh my God! Lost has turned a new corner. What an excellent episode. I'll talk about it more once it has been on Sky One tomorrow.

Lost: Man from Tallahassee

2007-03-21T23:58:00.000Z

Big potential spoiler alert here

I am obsessed with Lost - that long-running tv drama showing on Sky One in the UK, originating on ABC in the states.

I'm aware that in two short hours, all US citizens will be able to tune their TV to ABC and watch the latest episode - season 3, episode 13 - entitled "The Man from Tallahassee".

Are you watching it? Honestly, there's not a day goes by when I don't think about it, look it up on a website or download a podcast / YouTube clip for the latest theories, gossip and general immersalness.

The UK gets to see tonight's episode on Sunday night, 10pm, Sky One.

OK, so where are we.

At the end of the last episode (Par Avion) we saw Locke, Sayid and Kate enter the Others village that they tracked down ... due to some hokey thing about Locke having seen it on Mr Eko's stick as he was burying him: "a sign, a sign".

Anyhoo, at the end of the show we saw Jack playing football with The Others! He was playing with Tom, Mr Friendly, specifically. He seemed to be having fun. So we're left with the question ... is he now in league with The Others?

Having YouTUbed around, I found a trailer for this week's Lost on ABC (and hence Sky One in the UK, too). We see Jack talking to Kate. Oooh darn it if there's not a lov thang goin' on. Looks as if the little fling with Sawyer on the Hydra little island was perhaps born of pity because Kate thought Sawyer was a gonner. Kate didn't admit to loving Sawyer ... he did ask her and rather admitted he loved her.

Moving on. We discover Ben Linus knows that Locke was a wheelchair user for 4 years. He knows how he ended up in the chair, too. We hear from the voiceover man that Ben is going to tell Locke some of the secrets of the island in this episode too! I'm sure this must be connected with his apparent recovery and ability to walk again, Rose's bout of cancer remission and possibly even the reason why Sun became pregnant though her husband Gin is infertile (it's possible that Sun had an affair with that Lee fella we saw in flashback though, I think Damon Lindlaugh and Carlton thingumbyjig may hav admitted to this in one of their podcasts in the last run, Autumn time).

Ya know, it's only when I come to writing this down that I realise how dull it must be for others who know nothing about Lost? I was trying to tell my parents - they were up this past weekend - about the intricacies and how much I like the show ... they were zoning out barely before I started.

Latest Lost theories

• Desmond is Jesus -- Well. I had thought for a while back there that, tapping into this whole religious thing, Desmond was some kind of Jesus figure: keeps saving people (well Charlie), beard, keeps calling people 'brother', saved the world so others might live - but not sure about that now. Well, not sure what it would achieve in the entire story arc at any rate. Might come back to that another time.

• The great man -- Ben has talked about him, Mickhail the Russian fella who got killed talked about him. We're talking about the leader of The Others or the Dharma Initiative - if they are one and the same thing which I'm not altogether sure about. "He's a great man ... but not a forgiving man" said Ben back in season two when he was captive in the Losties' hatch. If he's not forgiving, could this be why Mikhail and Miss Klough were happy to die? Is he ruthless? Or is he a cult leader? Is the Dharma initiative a pseudo-scientific cult? Who is the leader? I think it might be Jack! But Jack has somehow either forgotten temporarily or is playing an elaborate game. Jack's faith healing tattooist saw leadership qualities in him, all the Losties defer to him as leader (mostly) and his tattoos say he is a man who stands alone amongst others. Others? Hallo, suss the big clue? He's the leader! He's why everyone is on the island!

• Leader backtrack -- Or maybe Locke is the leader ... Mikhail said he remembered Locke ... suggesting he may have been on Jacob's list. Hmm, whereas Tom (Mr Friendly) said Jack wasn't on Jacob's list back in the episode where Ben was in the operating theatre. But maybe Jack wasn't on the list because he IS the leader?

More at another time.

Not lifechanging

2007-03-21T23:22:00.000Z

I've done it again. Got all silly boyish excited about an electronic gizmo / piece of software I've got.

Basically everyone, party over, seems as if JAWS 8 isn't life changing after all.

Fuck. I'm off to bed.

If Dragon's Den were on when I were a kid ...

2007-03-21T22:52:00.000Z

When I was a lad, I used to get all fired up by TV programmes I watched.

If Blue Peter taught you how to make something, I'd be up, out of my chair, at the table, making it.

When the film 'WarGames' came on TV, I got up, went to my computer and tried to hack into something important. Didn't have a modem but that didn't stop me programming something with a password that made me feel like a technical whizz / hacker! Oooh! Ingenuity.

Superman? I drew a big Superman S thing and cut it out, put it on my TV shirt and became a superhero.

So to the present. This evening I watched Dragon's Den, got all excited as usual about starting my own business and making millions ... but what have I done about it now that I hav the tools, freedom and adult brain to make it a reality? Answer: nothing. Well OK I did sell a few old DVDs on eBay a few months ago after a particularly good episode of the business show but ... well if only it had been on when I was younger I could be a millionaire, innit.

At last

2007-03-21T21:12:00.000Z

For those of you keeping up with the fascinating yet fateful tale of why this blog hasn't been updated properly in a dog's age ... well we reach final stage tonight.

I have received the latest version of my screenreader, JAWS, and so Blogger is once again accessible - no thanks to the Blogger team who altered their site so that certain screenreaders were unable to use it. 290 pounds later, I can decorate the web with my meaningless blabber once again.

You must be relieved.

Tomorrow I get another disk with new voices for my screenreader which means I can evoke the lovely Karen - an aussie female voice - which I am taking a small amount of pleasure in for some reason. OK. I am in love with a speech synthesizer. I admit it.

I posted. There.

2007-03-13T19:46:00.000Z

OK so I'm posting to my blog for the first time in ages. did I tell you I've been to New York? Effing cold, minus 10, snow on streets, but had a great time. Shopped like a b*stard.

I'm writing this at work. It's 7:38pm and I should ahve gone home ages ago. I believe Americans have almost caught up with our superior method of mean timeage by doing daylight saving a few weeks early. That's nice.

OK. I've now forked out 290 quid (?) for the latest version screenreader so will be back blogging again very soon.

So, for those of you who missed me (and I can't imagine there are too many) then hurrah I'll be back. Screw blogger though and their sudden decision to make their site less accessible.

I've become meaner and more unpleasant since the last time I posted. I should warn you of this. I'm fired up at the moment and scattering my hell and hatred everywhere. Perhaps.

Oh god my mum is calling my moble.

Testing jaws 8 with Blogger

2007-02-03T19:50:00.000Z

hello. Is this working? I'm using a demo of JAWS 8 just to see if I can get it working at home. Sheesh. What a faff.

Boring I know but am just testing this blog out using a newer version of Jaws - Jaws 7 - and it sems to work.

2007-01-26T17:02:00.000Z

New blogger is inaccessible!

2007-01-10T08:43:00.000Z

Still no effing books to read

2007-01-10T07:46:00.000Z

I'm getting more and more pissed off about how I can't read books. There aren't any worth reading in accessible formats. Why why why do audio book publishers insist on churning out new and different versions of old stuff like Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes? How did we get into this state of being? It's ridiculous. Do they have no sense of zeitgeist? Who do they think their market is? And indeed, who the hell does make up the majority market for audio books anyway? I bet it isn't blind people. Also, lets note that you can put an entire audio book on one CD now that MP3 CDs are becoming more popular. And government, woohoo, hello, there are serious implications regarding education if there is no provision by which publishers are forced or obliged to make their books available: either electronic text or audio seem to be the most popular formats these days.

The idea that people want Braille books these days is a myth. Discuss. However I'm sure RNIB - whose campaigns haven't got very far despite some passion put in - have, I'm sure, cottoned on to the fact that government are more likely to approve a plan if they ask for electronic texts to be made available so that they can then turn them easily and quickly into Braille or large print. It may not be the medium of choice for many visually impaired people but it does buy into the whole literacy thing that the gov't are into.

Does reading audio books make you literate? discuss.

Does reading electronic texts with a speech synth or braille display make you literate? Discuss.

Jordan can't sing

2006-12-16T14:32:00.000Z

Just in case you haven't seen this doing the rounds, you've got to click and experience it now! Peter Andre and Jordan singing their hit A Whole New World ... but not exactly in tune.

I think the story goes that Jordan can't really sing so they use an autotune device to make her sound good in the studio. But some naughty recording person recorded the two of them doing their duet before her voice was synthesized to sound good.

It's hilarious. And Jordan is extremely mad that it got onto YouTube ... claims it has been faked to make her look stupid. "Ahh but she's a good bizniss woman innit, gotta respeck her for that ain't ya?"

Austria

2006-12-15T18:48:00.000Z

I've just got back from Austria as my below enthusiastic post about brass indicates. Rather fantastic. went to Vienna where it is cold and germanic and whirly.

I so completely badly want to learn to speak German! I bought some CDs by Michel Thomas (who I believe is dead now?) 5 years ago and really intended to go through all 8 disks and learn. I got up to disk 4 once butfor some reason didn't continue. Leave it a few months, come back to it, and you realise you have to start again. These quickie learning devices aren't nearly as good as continual practice of a language at school or living abroad.

So I'm on CD #1 again. I'm learning things like !"come with me, please" and "can I come with you this evening". I've forgotten what else because, to be honest, the last time I heard disk 1 was a week ago and it's all slipping from my mind.

TIP: never try to learn a language in bed at night. It's not quite the same as just flicking on LBC and falling asleep to it. It seems your brain needs to stay alert.

My girlfriend's family is half german. I'm sure there will come a time when it'll become useful. her grandmother was over in the UK last year and there were a few awkward silences when the rest of the family were out of the room leaving me and her. Ormy? Ormie? Not being able to see, I couldnt even just sit there and smile ... visual language is out the window too. So, apart from my personal wish to learn, it also has it's practical purposes. I'll be able to communicate with the in-laws ...

In Vienna we went to the Freud museum, the mozart museumhouse thing ... did a disappointing bus tour ... went to a restaurant that had an old man playing a Hungarian Gypsy instrument (we gave him a 10 euro tip and he played 'if I were a rich man' for us). We went to the Christmas market in front of the town hall ... shopped ... and lots of other stuff.

it was nice that Vienna was cold. London just isn't cold enough in winter any more.

And then all this stuff about the murderer in Ipswich broke! Kristina's little sister lives there; she's just moved there with her boyfriend. nasty to think of someone living in the thick of it ... she's sensible though.

talking about serial killers, though, I live very close to where that nice Denis Neilsen (SP?) bumped off and boiled his victims in the early 80s - known at the time as the Cricklewood Murders. Rather irrelevant now as he's out of harm's way. I don't remember whether he's in a secure hospital or a prison but I do remember him being interviewed on an ITV documentary in the mid 90s ... and it was chilling. He was goading the interviewer, "no it wasn't bloody. Have you never come across a dead body before?" as if he had the upperhand and was better because of it. Horrible. I can't put it into words but it was rather chilling.

So, there ya go, Vienna through to chilling murderers. I wish I hadn't tied the two subjects together like that. My holiday was great ... shame that I never seem to really relax until a day before it's time to go home. Sounds like a cliche but true in my case it seems.

• It's the Ouch Christmas Podcast party on Monday. Wahey yip yo. Really looking forward to it.

• Thanks to katie fraser for her marvellous Xmas gift to the Ouch team. We scoffed most of them today. mmmm shortbread with orangey chocolatey bits.

Where's my cab it's ten past seven for crissakes.

The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

2006-12-14T19:23:00.000Z

Wow! Got to recommend this band to you. I heard them on Gilles Peterson Worldwide show on FM4 in Vienna while I was there this week. Specifically he played a track called Jupiter, I think. Wow.

The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are exactly what they say ... brass with a kind of hip hop beat. Talk about amazing! No synthesizers or electronic sounds but totally fresh and vibrant; classic and modern. An amazing fusion from the soul!

Check out Hypnotic Brass Ensemble on YouTube.

I've got to find their album somehow! My initial Googling tells me they're from Chicago. I need that music now ... I'm off to buy it no matter how.

Have downloaded one of Gilles Peterson's Podcasts too ... first time I've really taken a lot of notice of the DJ - who also has a show on Radio One - he certainly has an ear for quality ... an interesting kind of classicness.

[update] Here's a link to the track I like Jupiter. You need to hear it in its entirity really because, at length, it is hypnotic. This clip is from somewhere near the end when some vocals kick in though I prefer just the brassy music. Interested to hear what others think.

No Christmas yet

2006-12-05T06:27:00.000Z

Can't think about Christmas or anything like that til we get our Xmas podcast out of the way and until I'm in Austria. Hurrah my holiday starts in Austria in just a few short days ... but so much to fit in before then. Will it all get done? I hope so.

I daren't go into the amount of effort, phonebashing and unforseen issues around making this podcast happen. It's put us back several days. Suffice to say, I'll be looking forward to meeting the 15-20 or so fire risks that we've invited along to the 'cast Thursday. Can't you just all learn to walk or something? How hard is it? Mik Scarlet is giving it his best shot after all on TV this Thursday at 7pm isn't he? What a role model!

Special guests at the podcast will be Mr Bennet the caretaker from Take Hart, Vicky Liquorice from Saturday Superstore and the man who wrote the Nationwide theme tune ... the early 80s one not the one everyone knows.

Great stuff!

Could blogger/google kill my blog?

2006-12-05T06:24:00.000Z

So, every time I logon to this blog I keep seeing a message from Google saying "want to update to our new version blog?"

My anxiety is that if i upgrade it'll become inaccessible to screenreaders meaning I'll never be able to post again! Other Google products aren't very accessible so I don't hold out too much hope. I'm aware I can delay the switch for a while but not forever because the entire system is going to swap over.

When I'm eventually forced to switch, this blog may die forever. But maybe it won't? If you are a screenreader user and have made the switch, can you tell me how you got on?

If I go very quiet ... you know why ...

Ha Ha meet

2006-11-19T20:45:00.000Z

Gosh, well, interesting afternoon. Met loads of people who fell off the Ouch messageboard and into the real world setting of bar Ha Ha in Victoria. Hello everyone who was there ... great to meet you.

WE all congregated thanks to an invite from Lady Bracknell (whose blog is far too popular for me to bother linking to here). Lady B received her MBE last Friday. Congratulations. Now for the next spiffing wheeze, i.e. to make her an actual Lady, one of them wot can sit in the House of Lords and uphold our democracy. Can you do it online these days? I figure if you can get AA car insurance online then Lordships and Ladyships can't be far off.

Spoke to everyone quite a bit except for Ouch messageboard wag Turtle who buggered off quicker than I thought she was going to. Again I'd link to Turtle's blog but I think there's a link down the side here somewhere and I'm trying to write this quickly to get in front of my TV in time for the new series of Lost later.

I didn't leave the bar until gone 7pm. Thanks to, or no thanks to, the excellent/inexcellent taxicard scheme and ComCab who are a bunch of sheisters.

The missing were missed: Marmite Boy, Fang and Becca Viola. Hopefully I'll be able to meet you all another time.

All this jibber jabber will mean very little to those who've not clicked the links to other blogs from this blog ... and to those who've never been to the Ouch messageboard before.

All really lovely people ... and one hell of an effort was taken to get us all round the same table. For those who made the most extreme efforts I salute you. Be great to meet up again.

More user generated TV stuff

2006-11-14T10:07:00.000Z

OK. Remember a few weeks ago I was banging on about user generated content and the fact that disability TV - as we'd want it - will never ever be commissioned by mainstream now? Mainstream was always an obstacle but now the nature of television is changing bit by bit so that the 'mainstream' broadcasters are no longer the "owners of the means of production" as someone once put it.

I'll do another round-up of happenings that show TV is dying and user generated content TV is on the rise, soon.

Today though I saw this in the MediaGuardian by Jemima Kiss:

YourKindaTV takes web TV shows onto Sky. Basically what we have here is website yourkindatv.com - a user generated newsy website - has bought some broadcast space on Information TV which you can receive if you're a Sky customer.

They're pretty much just showcasing their web content in a half hour weekend TV slot they've bought. Information TV, it seems, is one of these broadcasters that sells its own airtime. That's how it makes cash. You can buy an hour of time on Information TV for just one thousand pounds.

Fucking big fridge

2006-11-07T17:03:00.000Z

Ladies and gentlemen. From tomorrow I will be the proud (proud?) owner (definitely owner) of one of those huge American fridges. Thank you very much ... thank you ... thanks.

It's big, it's silvery coloured, it'll hold more food and drink than ever before ... and it'll just about fit in through my front door. Or, at least, the calculations we've done using a retractable steel measure and, well, our heads, basically, suggests we'll be OK. Just. With maybe a teensy bit of luck on our side.

For a little while, then, we will have two fridges: the fucking big one (we've discussed this already) and a not quite so fucking big one but still sizeable. Almost as tall as me (6 ft 2 ins).

We really wanted one of those that have a water cooler built in. Sadly it seems you need to plumb those in (I guess that's how the water gets in) and it's too far from the water pipes.

My idle hope is that the fridge will make me eat more healthily. The last month I've somehow gone on a bad food kick. Well, that's not to say too bad but I've been eating quite a lot of it. Just a temporary thing and I reckon that we've now got enough space in our FHF to make and freeze some lovely healthy foodstuffs.

Weirdly, Kristina has managed to go on a diet kick through the middle of my fat kick. I have suggested that she, as the main person who prepares food round these parts, is trying to fatten me up so that she looks better than me. If I get to the bottom of this and discover my suspicions are right ... well there'll be hell to pay. Seriously. I think those wife beaters may just get a bit of a bad rap just like disabled people too ... it's hard to sort it out in my head. Maybe I'll just trip her up when she comes in. There.

Other thoughts in my head today:

* That blowing-up-tube-under-the-Thames bloke came from round here. I wonder if I met him. Honestly though, terrorism is beastly ... I can't condone it.

* I don't appear to hav any Diet Coke in the house.

* I called a locksmith today for the first time in my life. I'm an adult!

* I'm going to an ironmonger tomorrow ... naw just joking

* Digital radio is rubbish and sounds like it's under water half the time.

* Channel 4's Jihad TV last night had lots of subtitled footage when people spoke in Arabic. I couldn't effing follow the programme. An important document of the times but made inaccessible to those of us who can't see so well (understatement)

* My guide dog hasn't had a shit in three days.

* we used to get farepak Hampers when I was a kid ... parents were agents in fact. I seem to remember that Noele Gordon was the face of Farepak back then ... then when she carked it Gloria Hunniford took over.

* What shall I spend my Amazon vouchers on?

* Is anyone else following Lost?

* My toe hurts.

PS: Sorry about the wifebeating gag. Really not funny if you're a wife and you've been beaten. Bad Damon. Funny how I can make gags about spastics but feel bad about this ... I left it in to see how I felt about it. Damon? Yeah? Whatever.

PPS: What happened to my blog entry about staying in a castle last weekend? It isn't here any more.

Insomnia LIVE

2006-10-17T05:36:00.001Z

Welcome to Insomnia live. The 24-hour show where Damon is always the star. I got to sleep at 11:30 but woke at 4:10am today.

It's a load of fucking blind crap. I need some of that chemical stuff I was talking about the other week, maybe that'll also cure my manic depression, seizures and illogical bank heists I keep getting involved in (even though I know I shouldn't)

Quick round-up

• Have I ever mentioned I've got a bit of a thing for Sky News's Anna Jones? Everyone says she's got a "small face" but I don't think that necessarily has to stand in the way of a fruitful relationship. Anyone? Sky under-use her, she does mornings now but was great doing the analytical stuff on Sunday nights on News 24 in another life.

• North Korea may be about to test a second nuclear device ... a penis envy thing if ever I saw one

• Today's news says we're all going to be drinking treated sewage to solve the water crisis. I thought Londoners had been drinking treated sewage for donkey's years? (that's not a stupid joke, I really thought that was the case?)

• Vaughan might be moving out of hospital he told me yesterday. Good news!

Oh Mr Confectioner please ...

2006-10-17T05:36:00.000Z

Dear Toblerone,

I'm quite excited about this and think you will be too.

It was my birthday last Sunday so I was given a rather large Toblerone bar. Unlike other chocolate bars I recall from my youth, I swear yours has got bigger. Is this true?

Whilst eating a chunk of your marvellous product today, I had something of an earth shattering idea I felt I needed to share with you.

Clearly you have cornered (no pun intended) the market for triangular chocolate. Well then, how about creating a circular bar to complement your range?

Just round off the triangular tips on your bar (they can hurt the roof of the mouth a little if you're not too careful actually, I don't know if your user testing has ever discovered that?) and a new bar will be born.

I've been singing in the bathroom and, it's OK: 'circular' fits equally well into your jingle which is already non-sensical, i.e. circular people, circular stteepels, bees, honey, etc. So no great marketing budget needed. In fact, I'd happily sing 'circular' in the places where 'triangular' currently appears ... if that's at all useful. I'm quite available: you can email me via this blog or call me in the office like Katie Fraser does.

I know what you're thinking. Wouldn't a circularesque Toblerone look a little like failed 80s chocolate bar, Logger? And yes, you might be right. But remember, Logger was an inferior bar with no chew even if it has the semi-circular / flat look that I envisage the new Circular Toblerone bar would have.

I do hope I have helped you out a little with your ultimate gift confectionary. To be honest there has been little innovation over there in Switzerland (I assume that's where you're still based?) after white chocolate Toblerones and those snow-capped ones you started producing for the Christmas market in the mid 90s. I don't want to use the word 'disappointed' but Christmases and birthdays are getting a little samey now that I'm in my 30s.

Yours sincerely

Damon A Rose

Swap Shop clip

2006-10-15T14:55:00.000Z

I had an email at work the other day from someone asking if Swap Shop would ever be shown again on BBC3 or BBC4 maybe. I told him that I'd recently seen a few archive editions of the show and maybe the treasured memories are better left as just memories.

I was the biggest Swap Shop fan, but, even I didn't really enjoy watching them again some 25 years later. GULP 25 years later?????

Anyhoo, playing around on YouTube earlier, I found a clip of Swap Shop where Noel is interviewing Leela from Doctor Who (Louise Jameson who went on to play Rosa Dimarco in EastEnders. I'm guessing it's an episode of Swap Shop from the late 70s.

Here's the Swap Shop video clip.

It's funny that nowadays, when we're marketing or trying to make something sound cool and modern and hi tech, we say it's 'digital' or 'high definition' or 'interactive'. In the 80s Nicam Stereo was all the rage ... but in the late 70s it was just good enough to be Multi-Coloured.

The New TV: video sharing

2006-10-14T11:41:00.000Z

I thought it'd be useful to put some links up to fully explain the growing 'user generated TV' phenomenon that is being talked about right now. There are some TV stations broadcasting already in the UK, or just about to start. There are also websites ... but who knows what's what or how we'll be watching content because, to put it crudely. websites will be the same as TV in the near future anyway.

TV STATIONS

• Fame TV launches on Sky in November

• MTV Flux launched in September | Read Wikipedia's entry about MTV Flux

• Propeller TV propelling student film makers and emerging talent up the career ladder (195 on Sky) | Read Wikipedia's entry about Propeller TV

• Current TV Al Gore's much talked about station coming to the UK in 2007 | Read Wikipedia's entry about Current TV

WEBSITES

• YouTube.com - Broadcast yourself (recently bought by Google) | Read Wikipedia's entry about YouTube

• Google Video

• GoFish | Read Wikipedia's entry about GoFish

• Read more about video sharing on Wikipedia

STUFF TO READ

Related stories from newspapers and the web in the last two weeks.

• Five video-on-demand site goes live

The vision thing -- A year after it was launched, YouTube is being sold for almost £900m. But what is Google buying? The world's biggest collection of pop videos and silly
home movies - or something that could change the face of policing, politics and the web? John Harris reports.

Gore joins forces with Murdochs for user-generated web/TV network -- "the democratisation of the television medium" says Gore. Current TV service to launch in UK before going global. BSkyB says deal is first step to more initiatives.

Murdoch says future is user-generated -- Speaking about Sky's collaboration with Current TV, the head of BSkyB says that the new video sharing trend will push existing production companies out of their comfort zone. "Producers have to engage with wider communities [and recognise] that it is not a fad, a niche, a blip that is going to go away." says James Murdoch.

Google nets YouTube in $1.65bn takeover -- The founders of the video website YouTube last night accepted a $1.65bn (£880m) takeover offer from Google for their 20-month-old venture, which has a big
online following but has yet to make money.

Am hoping to update this weblog entry at some stage, so if you see it reappear it's an update not a repeat ;)

Mainstream: it'll never happen.

2006-10-13T17:37:00.000Z

I've had an epiphany. Well it's been building for a while.

To cut a long story short ... there is no point trying to get a disability TV show on TV any more. Not on the big mainstream channels. Whatever you might want to see as a disabled viewer isn't going to happen.

Informed realism in the way I would want it isn't going to make it before TV starts to fragment hugely and 'mainstream' as a concept dies.

Mainstream, as we know it now, isn't going to be around for too much longer. To put it another way, everybody wil be a broadcaster soon.

If you want your ideas to 'get out there' and succeed then Youtube.com and other similar sites are going to be the answer. And if you remember that the web and TV are going to be less and less distinguishable within the next 5 to 10 years, it's not going to be a geeky backroom 'sit forward' office thing, it'll be a living room 'sit back' experience.

Lets stick with YouTube for a sec. Google have just bought it for just under a billion pounds. Already they're discussing that the business model for YouTube in the future will include advertising. The suggestion is that, if you upload a video, you will receive a share of that advetising money. And so if you can get enough people to watch it, via whatever means - viral marketing, press publicity, word of mouth, blog talk, whatever - you could be sitting on a small fortune that could sustain your lifestyle as an artist. An artist with a following could make lots of money if 90,000 or 8 million people click onto their latest video.

Who will be the stars of the future? Minority markets could well drive huge numbers of hits, especially if they are starved of the kind of content they'er after on mainstream channels. That's if channels still exist. By May next year we will be saturated with dozens of new ways to download, vodcast, podcast and share television and radio. Sky, BBC, Channel 4, Ch Five and even the usually slow ITV are all developing their various Video on Demand / iPlayer models.

They may be on the net to begin with but how are we going to be consuming video in the next few years anyway? The iPod TV is going to launch next year. The new Windows Vista operating system (replacement for XP) is launched with more multimedia capability and emphasis on transmitting to your TV set. BT Vision launches this November: it's a broadband TV set-top broadband box; some are calling it Freeview plus because that's what it is - Freeview ariel TV integrated with a seemless broadband offering that will let you get Video on Demand from its servers.

Sky are buying up broadband companies like nuts. Why? Because rupert Murdoch realises now that he has a hell of a white elephant on his hands. Sky has 9 million households with ugly great dishes on their rooftops. Lots of people would like to get rid of those dishes, dishes he gave away for free! He badly needs to get into what's been dubbed 'multicasting' - TV delivered over the web (IPTV protocol for the geeks out there). You can't do Video on Demand with a limited satellite system, nor via the airwaves with current Freeview boxes.

ADSL via your phone will be the main driver of multicast / Video on Demand TV. Broadcasts from many to many unlike broadcast which is from one transmitter to many. Advertising will be a dream too on this multicast platform, direct ads for the kind of person it already knows you are based on your TV viewing habits that it monitors.

Back to the disability point though:

production companies could well soon have the upper hand over what we now see as the main broadcasters. Content is king. If you've made some content, wy do you need a channel to show it on when Video on Demand exists? Why does Endemol need to sell Big Brother to Channel 4 if it could just stream it for itself?

You could just put your home made TV show up on your own website/servers in the future. All you need to do then is get the message out there that your show exists or get it listed somehow on the electronic programme guide connected with the set-top box system you've got with BT or NTL or Sky or whoever.

The first stage of Video on Demand will be a closed circuit, BT Vision for instance will not immediately be hooking up to the entire internet from this November we think but that will have to change.

They're already talking about including YouTube players in settop boxes. Or BBC / ITV players. Who will get there first? Whose software will be king? Don't know. Will it even work like that? It'll definitely be hooked up to your main broadband connection though.

What will mainstream be? The things at the top of the electronic menu this evening?

Disability groups round the world, creative people etc, should be thinking hard NOW about possible productions. I predict lots of applications to the Arts council to make TV shows in the near future. I predict a supportive network for minority TV. I predict also that some minority TV shows will get picked up by what we now call the mainstream. The 'mainstream' broadcasters will find that current easy-to-watch bubble gum TV might be discarded in favour of very niche shows that individual viewers have heard about. The mainstream will be wanting to go niche too.

This isn't a fully worked up article, it's a stream of consciousness that I'm hoping to turn into an article soon. Am interested in any feedback from anyone on this.

xxx

Ouch Podcast - stop abusing me!

2006-10-04T19:39:00.000Z

This is just a really quick message to everyone who keeps emailing me both at Ouch and via this blog.

The fact that the podcast has come to an end is not down to me. There are policy reasons, good policy reasons, ones probably a bit too dull to get into, as to why we were only granted a 'trial' in the first instance. I can't really say any more than that, sorry. I'm not meant to use my personal blog for work purposes and I don't intend to start now.

All I can do is hand it over to you. I'm aware that an online petition has started - nothing to do with me - so if you want to show your support please stop emailing me at home and go and speak to the petition people.

Despite taking the flack, can I just say that it's actually really nice to know that for the last six months we've been doing something right, something really popular.

xxxx

Sunday

2006-09-24T17:22:00.000Z

Bit guilty writing this post because Kristina is in the kitchen chopping veg for tonight's delicious meal ... whereas I've been sitting here on the net Googling for the Flaming Lips - a band we're going to see in concert in November.

Saw Memoirs of a Geisha on DVD today. It's one of those classic occasions where, of course, the book was much better than the film. The book is complex and about emotions as well as an amazing insight into the customs of the geisha, the film is really just a toe in the water ... but I understand it's visually fascinating which I miss out on being unvisioned as I am (trying to dodge cliches and make up my own PC terms today. OK, blind).

We're about to watch Derailed. I have no idea what it's about. But Derailed, and also Geisha, have audio description on them - hence they figured high on our choosing list. The Memoirs of a Geisha DVD confused us though because, instead of having the phrase 'audio description' on the box like every good logical DVD supplied should do ... they used the term 'audio commentary'. we almost didn't bother hiring it from Blockbuster until the fella behind the counter said we could bring it back if it didn't have AD. It did. Oh and BTW, the DVD playe player in the store was broken else we'd have got him to check it out.

Other notable interesting things of the week ... I got a webcam, so did my mum and dad. So, since Thursday, we've had a visual connection on the web. Must be nice for them to see their son; their son who hasn't bothered popping down to see them since Christmas.

Lastly ... got a good response about my insomnia post, innit. Nice one. Maybe others would be interested in this subject and maybe it's more of a disability thing than just a blind thing? Perhaps we should delve into it on Ouch. Thanks for being my testing ground - utterly unintentional though. Guess it is quite interesting.

L8rs

Insomnia

2006-09-20T05:26:00.000Z

I'm not sleeping lately. OK OK OK, you're gonna point at my last post about coffee and say something bland and logical like: "duh, stop drinking coffee".

But no. I am an insomniac. Or rather, I have sleep difficulties generally, even when not going thru a major coffee blitz. God I hate reading people's blogs when they start talking about this kind of thing, it's so damn dull. So, let me just furnish you with the stuff that interests me:

1: I'm blind. You need light to help set your internal body clock. I don't get it, hence I have a rampant body clock.
2: I read somewhere once that blind people are more likely to have a 30-hour body clock, not a 24-hour one.
3: Therapies exist involving melatonin

Firstly, I rather like the idea that I don't have a regular boring old standard 24-hour body clock. I run in a different timezone to everyone else. I think it's quite cool to not click in with the rest of society in this way.

Downside is that having a 30-hour body clock, if that's what I've got, means my sleeping is all over the place. Social pressures mean I have to conform to this 24-hour malarky that everyone else is so set on ... which further confuses my innards.

Melatonin is the chemical produced when in light, I think? I think it's what's missing from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) peple too. Does this mean I have constant Seasonal Affective Disorder because it's 'forever autumn' or 'forever mid winter' in my head? Is it this winter effect I'm feeling in my lower moments?

But mum says my body clock was shagged even before I lost my sight. So, whaddya say to that? Either a) my mum hates me and is just trying to piss me off by breaking my new unified theory of the world, or, b) she's right and I'm making up excuses.

Typical effing cripple aren't I.

But if anyone asks, I'll be saying "I have a 30-hour body clock" cos it sounds cooler. Now just have to wait for someone to ask me that most unlikely of questions "Damon, do you run on a regular 24-hour internal body clock, or what?"

Decaffeinated my arse

2006-09-18T17:21:00.000Z

At the top of this blog - well today anyway - it says something about me being a Decaffeinated Londoner. I wrote that when I was on a minor health kick. It seems I'm on even more of a minor health kick at the moment, though.

Bought an exercise cycle recently. Broke it yesterday. At least it shows I'm using it though and it hasn't become a coathanger. Bloody pedal fell off. Scared of trying to fix it now. Took long enough to put together out of the box from Argos in the first place. Kristina can do it.

Back to the caffeine.

It's like I can't throw enough coffee down the back of my throat at the moment. It's like, if I weren't such a good boy, I'd be onto the harder stuff by now. I feel I need it at the moment. Lots of little things swimming around in my head, lots of bitty things at work - coffee is the glue, coffee keeps me sane and going.

I wrote a column on Friday. Have since binned that column. It was utter crap. I can only imagine I didn't drink enough coffee that day and my colleagues didn't leave their desks enough, saying: "I'm going downstairs. Is there anything anyone wants from the canteen or wherever?"

I was quite impressed that I sank two coffees before 10am today.

Coffee = life glue. It keeps you together. It hardens your arteries, supposedly, but god it's the stuff of life.

Have lost interest in alcohol lately. Anyone know why?

They put Smarties on top

2006-09-16T11:57:00.000Z

Cakes. When I was a kid. Little cup cakes. They put Smarties on top.

I hate smarties. There's an unsatisfyingly small amount of chocolate in them, there's too much sugar coating, they're shiny, they stick in your teeth, they're too sweet, they make me go sugar ballistic afterwards, they're the epitimy of shite ... even though the current media spin from them is about 'new healthier Smarties with all natural colourings' where blue Smarties had to die because they couldn't find a natural alternative for blue.

Party cakes with Smarties on must die, though. And exactly who likes Iced Gems? I cannot, for the life of me, work out what is in the least bit tasty or attractive about tiny weeny biscuits with big dollops of dry 'orid icing on them. They truly are abhorrent. Colourfully mouth-hurtingly sugary-sculpturingly abhorrent.

Looking forward to seeing the return of Jamie Oliver's School Dinners this Monday, Channel 4, 9pm.

I blame myself, really

2006-09-15T18:09:00.000Z

Is it just me or do you get a severe sense of guilt and paranoia when stories like this appear:

bad environment story

If I read them at work, I get the distinct feeling that everyone is looking at me and blaming me for the melting of the polar ice caps.

OK. I've got a dishwasher. But this fella from Thames Water on LBC a few weeks ago said that, actually, if you've got a modern dishwasher, and you fill it full, it uses less water than manually washing your dishes in the kitchen sink.

I'm getting my environmental messages mixed up because, although it's part and parcel of the massive '4 years or you're fucked' environmental disaster we're all about to face e, the lack of water is down to global warming because of people using their dishwashers, flying to New York from London and leaving their computers on all the time so they can just dip in and consult google at a second's notice.

I'm sitting here at work after having spent half the day, on and off, trying to write my latest column which went a bit haywire but I think I'm taming it now. It's gone 7pm though and my cab firm has let me down badly. I should be enjoying my time off now, shouldn't I?

Aarrrghhh!

I've got tickets to see The Flaming Lips and you haven't so ner.

Tried to get tickets to see The Killers when they went on sale today but sadly the Ticketmaster website is inaccessible due to those captcha graphic things - type what you see in this graphic". I've got a good mind to sue the fuckers because, during ticket rushes, their websites are just inaccessible to some disabled people: blind or with motor function or cognitive stuff, as the time limits they put in place are clearly not achievable for many peple.

Is it going too far to say I'd like to see the head of Ticketmaster on a pole with blood and brain tissue flowing out of the bottom of it? Proffit greedy fucker.

I believe I now have to write 'these views are not those of the BBC' on my blog due to recent new workplace rules. No. Can't imagine Director General Mark Thompson standing up and endorsing the bit about brain tissue ... certainly good to clarify this though, I'm sure all readers were wondering if I were speaking for the organisation here.

Bless em though, I appreciate the basic idea behind the blog edict and they do pay my mortgage ... x x x

9/11 outcome

2006-09-14T05:31:00.000Z

What has been the outcome of all this 9/11 coverage on TV this week? Clearly the images and chatter were extremely seductive to me because I've purchased a ticket to New York, and will be flying there in February.

Bargain, kidz. Check out Travel Supermarket. The best cheapest 'scraper' website, as they call them.I got a ticket to New York for 170 quid, which includes all airport taxes etc. There's been a price war going on between Continental and Delta, it seems, or so Money Saving Expert told me at the end of last week. Great website! If you're in the UK, go there, sign up to its newsletter, tell all your friends.

Am I warped?

My 9/11 part 5

2006-09-12T06:22:00.000Z

Funny ol' day yesterday, barely worth recording in some ways. A small list of small bad events that served to annoy and hinder rather than do any great harm. I still refer to it as my 9/11 though.

Lets run through it then:

* smashed head very hard on door on the way out in a bad act of malcoordination when bending down to pick up my mobile phone I dropped while rushing to get out of the house. Really hurt. Big glancing blow leaving me with a small bruise that somehow doesn't justify the pain and later effects.

* Had to take Liam to the vet to have his second in a series of tests to see what's up with him - liver we suspect. (liam = guide dog)

* At work, my computer failed to even boot up. I can't just move across to any other computer cos I have screenreader and Braille display hooked up to mine ... so sat there for almost two and a half hours while IT got their act together.

* Kristina called. She was on her way home in a cab. She'd stood on an object in the middle of her office floor and damaged her twice-broken ankle. A big twist. She was taking work home so she could 'put her foot up' while tapping on her laptop.

* At 2:15 or thereabouts I got a cab home so I could at least work on my home computer.

By this time I was feeling worse though. That bang on the head had rocked me quite a lot. So by about 5:30 I found myself lying on the sofa feeling really quite woozy and sick with it all. Mentioned it to my dad later who talked about concussion. Surely not? I think it probably just triggered off a migraine. I get those. Dreadful.

So there you go. That was my trivial 9/11 - well trivial, that is, if I haven't sustained long-term brain damage as a result of that bang.

I fear I've lost a fair bit of data on my work computer as it seems my hard disk died. At least I can attribute this to 9/11

And just one more thing to rub the ./11-ness of yesterday in ...

Kristina's sister gave birth to her secondborn, who, as yet, has no name. Actually she gave birth on September 10. Steph was really quite pleased about this because her firstborn (Isobel) celebrates her birthday on July 7 ... would've been a bit rough if her new little brother was a 9/11 baby. The terror twins? Bad omen averted.

9/11 five years on / back from Italy

2006-09-11T08:18:00.000Z

Gosh, first time in ages I've posted to this blog. Have had a few concerned emails from people ... no reason to be concerned, though sometimes you do kinda ask yourself why you're bothering to write a blog.

Just got back off a rather nice week in Italy. Stayed at Kristina's parents converted farmhouse in th the middle of very rural Le Marche, in Italy ... about an hour's drive from Ancona airport.

Ancona is served by the dreaded RyanAir; an airline that disabled people shudder at when they hear its name. In the end though, we didn't ask for assistance (deliberately so as not to make ourselves known to them) and busked our way through the airport. We had no real problems. Stansted is a small airport with only one real direction you can go in ... thankfully.

Anyhoo. Very relaxing. Very very relaxing.

I note that it's 9/11 today. Five years on since that dreaded day in New York. 14 months since that day in July, London. 2 and a half years on since Madrid. And just a month since the unfolding 'bomb plot' for which people are still being charged bit by bit by the Met Police.

It was the dying days of the BBC's Disability Programmes Unit on Sep 11, 2001. We were all sitting round desperately trying to think up ideas for programmes with a disability theme that might get a commission by Jane Root - then controller of BBC TWO. Sadly she rather thought of us as the Work experience Unit, didn't like what we were doing, didn't like our new zeitgeisty ideas, and no commissions soon translated into no unit.

I was meeting with Ally Scott when plane number one hit the towers in Yew York. Nancy, then Asst Producer, shouted across that a plane had hit the tower. We were interested but assumed it was a low level accident; think the reports were saying it was a light aircraft at the time.

Then a few minutes later Nancy shouted across that a plane had hit the second tower. We stopped our meeting and rushed to the TV set.

Not knowing much about these things, I remember vaguely thinking that maybe the air traffic control computers had gone a bit wild and directed the planes incorrectly. Other more cynical sorts had already predicted the end of the world. I was confused because I'd been to New York a year earlier and, on my visit to the Empire State Building, had learnt about an aircraft crash into its side in the 1940s, and knew that no aircraft were allowed to fly over Manhattan since that day 60 years earlier. so I was a little confused at why this had happened at all.

Everyone on the ground floor of the BBC's White City building - including everyone in the Watchdog studio/office which was just down the corridor, were glued. No one was working. Sorry licence fee payers.

As the scenes unfolded, I remember sitting there in a state of terror. I know in hindsight that London wasn't effected, nor anywhere else in the world, but at the time our skies were being locked down too, all sorts of security measures were taking place, Government was said to be having an emergency meeting, and we were all wondering what the hell was going to happen next.

Was this just part of a localised attack on New York? Or was this a wider attack on the western world? News reporters were frantic. Little titbits were getting on air about missing aircraft all over the US and UK ... missing aircraft meant 'potential disaster'. Could London Docklands get the next hit? I thought the fabric of the world was falling to pieces for a few hours.

At around 4 or 5pm London time, we all began to realise that it was probably all over.

Just a few brief memories.

Hot hot heat

2006-07-04T05:15:00.000Z

It's 6:11am. Had quite a good night's sleep actually, despite the heat of London. Feeling quite calm and zen-like.

Government has issued a warm weather warning. Do they usually? Is this new? Like Coke Zero? Is it a good thing or is it simply patronising? Um, the warning not the new bloke Coke brand. If I hadn't heard the warning I would still have stayed out of the direct sun and taken a bottle of water on the tube with me.

Since the last time I blogged I have been to Athens for a conference on Disability and Mass Media. It was interesting. Without sounding patronising they are a little behind where we are in the UK. It was hot there too by the way.

Went to see Avenue Q a couple of weeks ago. It's a musical at the Noel Coward Theatre off Leicester Square. An adult version of Sesame Street, it has songs in it such as The Internet is for porn and Everyone's a little bit racist. You can see the first song on the youtube site if you do the right searches. If you have watched Sesame Street, loved it or hated it, you'll like this. It features humans and puppets on stage: Kate Monster, Christmas Eve, Rod, Nicky, Trekkie Monster, Princeton, Lucy and others. I recommend it. Go. Concession ticket was about a tenner. We have friends who are going back a second time.

So, should I get up and get ready and go into work early in the cool early morning breeze before the heat of the day? Or should I slob around a bit first. I think maybe I'll do the erly thing.

I hope everyone reading this has listened to the latest Ouch Podcast? It's the best yet.

Did I disappear?

2006-06-16T05:08:00.000Z

I think I went away and forgot I have a blog. I think I went away and so-called forgot I have a so-called blog. Of sorts, called, so.

Crap. Dunno what to say about stuff at the moment. Crap. Just crap. It's all crap.

Something big has happened at work that I am not going to go into for the sake of others, privacy, etc. It's just too big. But I'm gonna talk about the D-word. Disability. That word Jeremy Beadle said he didn't like on our podcast. And this week I'm agreeing with him. It's shit. It's a horrible label, it warps what and who you are (because it's such a loaded word, even though it shouldn't be - revisionists unite, etc).

But when something big happens, when you or someone you know has a setback, something that seriously affects their life and lifestyle, well there's nothing good about it, nothing to celebrate, nothing interesting, nothing but hard hard knocks, too much to think about, a mindfuck challenge of extraordinary portions (yes I said 'challenge' cos sometimes it's applicable and not meant patronisingly) ... life can just be fucking hard when medical matters catch up with you and there's NOTHING YOU CAN DO about it.

The D word thing. What can I say.

Yes it's spawned an interesting and worthwhile sub culture and counter culture. No denying it's important and good. But lets not lose sight of why it was spawned in the first place ... not because we love having things wrong with our bodies ... but because, when we eventually get our heads round our lives, know who we are, and feel we want to strike out and hit the world ... it's then that we seek strengths, we want pride, we want dignity, we want respect and equality. But getting to that point isn't something you can achieve with ease, it's not something that all people can understand because events are just too damn harsh and life limiting oftentimes, it's a road not to be sneered at or sniffed at. But with time, support, perspective ... things move on. They do. I've been there several times. And you don't recognise you're moving forward until you look back five years later.

When I became blind ... my erly memories are of shame. I was ashamed of who I was. I was only 13 but I didn't want anyone to see the new me. Thinking back 22 years to that point in my history, I feel anger mostly. Anger that I allowed myself to feel that way and anger that I had no counselling to give me an alternative view. But I did meet others at the time who were blind and stronger than me. I found it astonishingly enlightening ... and it was only then that doors started to slowly creak open. In the meantime ... small comforts.

And talking of such, I'm going to make a cup of tea.

Cinema Watch - Week #3

2006-05-13T06:38:00.000Z

Here I am again with my look at VUE cinemas in London to see if 1) my local cinema has bothered using it's Audio Description equipment this week ... and whether it'd be possible for me to travel to another London cinema in order to see a film.

Basically we have a situation where quite a few London cinemas have AD capability but don't bother ensuring that they put a described movie in the screen that has the technology.

So, my local cinema is Finchley Road VUE at the O2 Centre.

Here's how VUE are doing this week:

Acton: Mission Impossible 3 all week.

Croydon, Grants - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Croydon, Purley Way - Mission Impossible 3 all week.

Finchley Road - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Fulham - Ice Age 2 all week

Harrow - Mission Impossible 3 all week.

Islington - Ice Age 2 all week.

North Finchely - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Shepherd's Bush - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Staines - Mission Impossible 3 all week

Thurrock - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Watford - Mission Impossible 3 all week

West End - Scary Movie 4 sun/tues only.

There seems to be a little bit of a pick-up this week. And look, their flagship cinema West End are showing something this week! Hurrah. Is Scary Movie 4 any good? That's the one most likely to get me visiting the cinema out of the above choice of MI3, Ice Age 2 and Scary Movie 4 in London.

If you look outside of London you discover that many cinemas show 2 different AD movies per week. And that there seems to be a greater choice around the UK.

And you'll have seen that Finchley Road, my most conveniently close cinema, is again showing nothing with AD.

Is it a case of going to Blockbuster again? The latest DVD releases with AD on that look most promising, are: The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Producers (2005), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Dr Who series 1 box set is also available but still haven't made my mind up about it and prefer David Tennant to Chris Ecclestone.

Check out VUE's AD and subtitled movie schedule for yourself.

Gary McKinnon

2006-05-10T19:57:00.000Z

Gary McKinnon. Is he a dark hat or is he a white hat hacker cracker thing?

He openly admits to having hacked into the computer systems of the US forces including NASA. He did so over the course of 2 years from 2000 to 2002.

Today British courts have said that the US are free to extradite him.

What fascinates me is that he says he was looking for evidence of extra terrestrial space craft knowledge. Read: Hacker fears 'UFO cover-up' (BBC News). What's more, he found the evidence. Read the article. He also found evidence of suppressed technologies; i.e. that US scientists had backwards engineered technology found in capture alien spacecraft and worked out how, for instance, to create FREE energy (from matter) and antigravity.

But there are some rather big holes in what he says. He claims he kept no documents or pictures. Really? I know that I would have done.

That said, I really don't want to see him go to prison and his hacking exploits have helped the US Forces patch up security black holes.

keeping things

2006-05-10T19:36:00.000Z

I used to throw things out of my fridge on the 'eat by' date. Now I keep them longer. What a scam!

Oh and fruit juice is only bad when it goes fizzy.

Monday Lottery

2006-05-08T19:57:00.000Z

Just played the new Monday lottery.

The idea that it's fairer goes rather out of the window when you discover you have to gamble 5 quid to win up to a million. But more than that, you have to choose to play five lines all the same in order to win a million.

Each week there are two draws.

• Draw 1 could win you up to 100,000 pounds.

• Draw 2 could win you up to 200,000 pounds.

You can choose to play 5 lines, each line goes to a different charity. So that means you can pick and choose who you donate to this week - the charities are different each week with 70 in circulation (Born Free Foundation, RNID, Shelter and two that I've forgotten this week)

So if you play a pound for each charity (5 x 1 pound = 5 pounds) and then choose the same numbers in each of those 5 lines then in draw 2 you could win 5 x 200,0000 = 1 million quid.

There are lesser prizes for 5, 4 and 3 just like the regular old Lottery.

If you don't win a penny though, you are put into the losers draw where you could win 500 quid a month for a year!

So, basically, if you spend one quid you could win up to 200,000 quid. No more than that. Interestingly though I did find myself wondering whether I wanted to play all five because they weren't my favourite charities. I can imagine other people picking and choosing how much they play based on the chosen charities in a given week. So being able to choose who you donate to in this way is kinda nice.

I'll tell you how I get on tomorrow. I know it's crap and yes I know it's a tax on the stupid.

Have you seen the story about the housemates for the Big Brother house which starts next Thursday 18 May? (a Thursday?, you can't have a BB party on a Thursday) Look at Digital Spy for the latest BB7 gossip.

word verification on blogger?

2006-05-08T12:49:00.000Z

We've previously discussed how word verification on blogger is inaccessible. Yet in the last couple of weeks it seems that they've added a new feature where you can click and listen to the numbers/words in the graphic and - at last - be able to post to blogs and be part of the blogging community proper if you can't see so well.

So far I've not yet got it working. Has anyone else? I've only been playing with it today though so maybe it's been working before today and is having issues at the moment. Thus far I've tried Goldfish's and Fang's blogs. NO others.

Anyone? Is it just me?

[Update] I was able to hear the audio verification by right clicking on it, saving it to my desktop and then playing it. I don't know why it's not streaming for me. It is suggested in the documentation that quicktime works well for playing their wav but why not any other player? Seems a bit weird to me. Anyhow, a solution now exists for me even if it's a little time consuming ;)

George Bush at the heart of UK politics?

2006-05-08T07:04:00.001Z

Jack Straw potentially ousted by George Bush? That sickens me to the core.

In case you're not up to speed, or if you're American or something (same thing?), Britain had some rather big local council elections last Thursday. Tony Blair's Labour Party lost 300 seats, I think that translated into about 19 councils round the country in real terms.

On Friday morning, Blair presided over a big cabinet reshuffle. The beleaguered Charles Clarke went, the beleaguered Tony Prescot went and then oddly Jack Straw (now former Foreign Secretary, Condy's counterpart in the UK) lost his post too.

So, being as he hadn't apparently done anything wrong as per Clark (oops I let lots of foreign prisoners disappear off our radar, we forgot to deport them, they commited further crimes including rape) and John Two-Shags Prescott (I'm sinking to tabloid depths now) ... what led to his sacking?

Yesterday's Independent on Sunday carried the following:

Jack Straw's fate was sealed in a phone call from the White House to Tony Blair last month, according to the former foreign secretary's friends.

They say President George Bush was furious that Mr Straw said it was "nuts" to use nuclear weapons against Iran, an option reported to be under active consideration
in Washington.

Downing Street had already warned Mr Straw repeatedly to tone down his complete rejection of the military route as "inconceivable", insisting it was important
to keep all options on the table.

Read the article: The Washington connection: Did Bush stick the knife into Jack Straw?

So, Straw could've gone because of American politics? Because Bush still harbours a desire to attack Iran with real weapons. Killing weapons.

OK, so let me put a cool head on things for a sec, not too easy to do in the face of a potential muslim v christian war (I believe that's how it's seen on the world stage).

The game has set in. Clearly a war of rhetoric has started. You can plot the escalating language from the Americans. It's about seeking resolutions, it's about getting things done, it's about calling Iran's bluff if nothing else. The same happens in reverse with Iran putting their point of view. And, to me, in a world with an impending energy crisis, it makes complete sense that Iran would want to look into a nuclear energy solution. After all it's apparently what both Bush and Blair have seized upon as the best answer currently.

But Straw said it was 'nuts' to think we'd go to war. I personally agree with him. There's so much more at stake here. In our 'global village' we're seeing society break down with the post 9/11 cross cultural scism. And an anti-superpower anti-capitalism scism too. The effects are now very real and apparent.

But equally ... all options, I guess, should "appear to be" on the table right now. The language of diplomacy is actually quite facinating. It's the same language as media spin ... and we all saw how Blair subtly shifted his rhetoric on the approach to the 2003 Iraq war. Just the dropping of occasional words for instance.

Diplomacy and media spin have different goals though, clearly, even if there are similarities.

Hey, former Labour Party PR man Alistair Campbell said something interesting yesterday which puts the media attack on Blair into perspective. He said something like: "media will always be able to find people who are against the prime minister to fill air time'. And he's right. Media do create stories. It can give false impressions. Even if they do give an apparent balance in a piece headlined 'Labour Party on brink of civil war' - the seed is planted in the public consciousness. And that's all that's needed to bring satisfaction levels down, to make pollsters whoop with joy when the next results show a drop of 5% in support of the prime minister, etc. "I'm always facing my worst week ever" Blair said to the excellent Nick Robinson the week before last after the so-called Black Wednesday. It's just a headline. There's no great truth. But at least the media acts as a check and balance on the political system and its people. Where would we be without media?

God I'd be fascinated to be a fly on the wall of some cabinet meetings, wouldn't you?

Just how many of those apparently carefully thought out plans presented to the British public were thought up 10 minutes before they were announced in a press conference? Just how much are they driven by the desire, or need, to appease media and political commentators such as Richard Hitler Littlejohn ... spit spit spit.

Monthly press conference with Tony Blair at midday today. Meeting with his Mps this evening. A potentially interesting political day ahead but bound to end with little drama and I have no real doubt that the press machine will smother the 'Blair must go' momentum. Ministers and party people are practically throwing themselves at TV cameras, microphones and reporters today.

Just blogging, brainstorming into my computer. I'm off to watch Noam Chomsky's manufacturing consent now.

Week off!

2006-05-08T06:35:00.000Z

Yes! Today is the first day of my week off. Hurrah! I'm sitting here in front of my PC with, oddly, KISS FM on (rather unlike me) but it's jogging me through the morning.

I had intended to spend lots of time this week writing. Remember that 'novel'?

Trouble is that on Friday afternoon at work the pain started. The G-word. Arthritic hell. My right arm started to really hurt. So I've stoppped myself from using the PC all weekend ... packed my arm in ice, took my sick-making drugs that keep me tied to the house for 2 days or more ... and I think I stopped it from becoming a massive attack. It's barely swolen but hurts.

I've stopped. But I'm really anxious that I now might not be able to write as I'd wanted to this week. I've been on the PC now for 20 minutes and keep checking to see if the pain is getting worse.

I've turned KISS off now and onto the far mor respectable tones of Today on Radio 4.

Gosh, Blunkett is on. Wait a sec. He's talking about the headlined 'pending labour party civil war' ... and that the leadership acknowledges the dismay felt by last week's local council election results. Interesting that he's been wheeled out as if he's a cabinet member ... he's no more than a back-bencher now. But he's a Blairite and an old stager.

Being a news junkie, and someone fascinated in the cut and thrhust of politics and the characters involved, I'm quite pleased I've got this week off because some real interesting politics could be starting to unfold this week. Tony Blair has a meeting with his MPs this evening where he'll be addressing the whole issue of his timetable to leave'.

Labour does need renewal, as Gordon Brown put it yesterday on Sunday AM. When I think back to 1992 and how Neil Kinnock lost that election. I was gutted. I signed up as a member of the Labour Party at the time. I was a member for about 3 or 4 years. Scarily my membership forms seemed to follow me round the country as I moved from house to house around that time. I have no idea how they did that. Even had knocks on the door about my membership! But anyway, I feel rather liberal through and through ... but beginning to realise more and more that you can't always just throw money at problems. Creativity and other structures need to be part of an overall solution, too. I hope that doesn't turn me into a Tory ... I do worry sometimes. They say you turn into a Tory as you get older ... I look at Tony Benn as my hero though, he's kept the faith, kind of.

God don't ya just love Rabbi Lionel Blue? He's a man who could give me faith. (he was just on Thought for the Day). Listen to him.

Cinema Watch week #2

2006-05-04T16:41:00.000Z

Gosh, it's Thursday so time to look at the VUE cinema website to see if the Finchley Road cinema has got a) a decent film on with audio description or b) any film on at all.

I'm extremely surprised, though rather delighted, to report that my local cinema is showing '16 Blocks' with Audio Description from tomorrow.

What's going on? Have they been reading my blog? I barely even got into the stride of slagging them off! :)

Well, great, I'll be off to see it some time in the next seven days. I've got next week off work so I may even go alone while girlfriend toils in office.

I had mentioned in my last cinemawatch posting that I quite wanted to see 16 Blocks. Uh-oh, wait a second. On further inspection it's only on for a very limited period though. Why? Sun 16.40 Tues 19.10 . That's not all that good is it when you take into account the fact 8 out of every 10 films now receive the AD treatment. Where are the rest? Anyway, mustn't look a gift horse in the mouth must I. BE MORE GRATEFUL DAMON.

I'm gonna try a little experiment now ... ssshhhh ... hey I'd really like to see that Wal-Mart movie, or Enron or Davinci Code soon?

Lets have a look at other cinemas in London this week:

Acton - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week. In other words: "we've got the equipment we just can't be arsed to switch it on"

Croydon, Grants - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Croydon, Purley Way - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Dagenham - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Fulham - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Harrow - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Islington - 16 Blocks. Sun 15.50 Tues 18.10 (just two performances, so at least I've got the choice between 16 Blocks and 16 Blocks this week in the north part of town)

North Finchley: Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Shepherd's Bush - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Staines - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Thurrock - 16 Blocks. Sun 14.10 Tues 19.10

Watford - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

West End - 16 Blocks. Sun 15.10 Tues 20.50. Why just twice? Why?

Jesus VUE ... wha'ts going on? This is appalling. All the above cinemas hav the equipment but have chosen not to show an AD film this week. And they complain no visually impaired people come along? That's cos you don't show anything! The above is London alone, metropolitan cool cinema-going London.

Cinema Watch - week 1#1

2006-05-02T18:57:00.000Z

For months I've been looking at the website of my local cinema to see if A) they've got an Audio Described (AD) film on this week and B) whether it's worth going to see. The closest one to me is quite a big establishment at the O2 Centre on Finchley Road here in North West London.

Here is the page I look at. It details audio described what and subtitled movies are available at VUE in the UK.

If you followed the link today, you'd see what it says against Finchley Road VUE cinema:

"Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week."

I think they had a kids film on the week before last but most weeks of late I've seen the above apology.

Context:

* Approx 8 out of 10 films have audio description.

* Usually only one screen per cinema has the AD technology installed.

* This week VUE are showing films that definitely come with an AD disk ... but they're choosing to show them in the screens that don't have the AD technology that broadcasts to the headphones of visually impaired people in the audience.

Cinemas are kicking up that visually impaired people just aren't turning up. It's not surprising when they either show really crappy family oriented PG films every week in the AD screen (lowest common denominator and thus usually the most visual and less rewarding even if described) or don't show any at all.

How about showing 16 blocks? I'd quite like to see that.

Q: Hey Damon, what about traveling somewhere else in London, another VUE cinema perhaps?

Great idea! Only if you check the page you'll see that VUE have pulled the same stunt in most of their London cinemas this week.

Fulham - sorry no audio description

Shepherd's Bush - the website says they're showing CRAZY with AD ... but apparently Crazy doesn't actually have an Audio Description disk! Is the ice cream seller shouting out the missing narrative, then?

West End - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Islington - Sun 17.30 Tue 19.30 ... two opportunities in the week to go and see it. Why isn't there AD on all the time? Unlike subtitles you don't need special screenings because it's delivered via headphones and no one else is interupted. Maybe they've gone and mistaken AD for subtitles again? They do it regularly apparently.

Acton - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Croydon, Grants - Ice Age 2 is on Sun 13.55 Tues 18.05 ... just the two showings of a family animation? Is this real info or, as discussed, are they mixing it up with subtitles again? It's hard to tell.

Croydon, Purley Way - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Croydon is a bit out of London anyway ... but perhaps I'd have been willing to travel if they were showing a really good film? NO chance buster.

Dagenham - bit out of town but ya know maybe I could make it for a great film: Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Harrow - middlesex but only half an hour by taxi ... they're showing Ice Age 2 just the once on Sunday at 14.30

North Finchley - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Reading - Maybe a trip via train but Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Staines - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Thurrock - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

Watford - Sorry, no audio description or subtitled screenings this week.

FOR CHRIST SAKE'S VUE CINEMAS! This is London. It was a Bank Holiday weekend. What on Earth was going on?

Looking at the choice of films showing around the rest of the country it was a bit pityful compared to the amount of films that have AD disks available.

Something is going very very wrong with the way this happens. There is no cohesive system. No one is thinking about AD customers in a logical way.

More next week in Cinema Watch week #2

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day

2006-05-01T13:09:00.000Z

Really impressive that over one hundred people are blogging against disablism today.

I thought I'd look for a definition via Google. You know how you tap in a word and it becomes highlighted meaning there is a definition if you click it? Disablism and ablism don't have definitions yet. But I guess that's why we're blogging about it.

Like racism and sexism and homophobia, disablism describes prejudice against disabled people. But the interesting thing about prejudice to this group (of which I'm one) is that oftentimes disablism is mistaken for kindness.

"I didn't give her the job because she's disabled and it'd be a strain on her geting into work every day." -- employers have been heard to say this kind of thing despite the fact that a very employable disabled person has presented themselves for an interview wanting to get some independence and a better quality of life perhaps. The employer sees her as hassle and believes she must be mistaken and helps her by not giving her the job. It's kindness not to burden her with that kind of strain?

I spoke to a local radio phone-in producer a couple of years ago who told me that a man with a stutter had called in to make a point on air. She said that she didn't put him on air because people listening might laugh or make fun of him and maybe he didn't realise. She thought she was being nice but she stopped him from being part of a public debate in a democratic country. She asked me if she'd done the right thing expecting that I'd say yes. The answer is: "well he called up, didn't he?" She was a bit embarrassed by him because she didn't have to deal with stuttering or differences daily.

I find this dangerous. Kate talks about it really well today in her BADD blog entry on her pages Everyone Else Has A Blog go and read it!

I struggle with disablism sometimes though. I'm not 100% sure how to define it ... plus still keep my mental health in so doing. Some things you have to let go. Maybe you shouldn't but you do.

I really wanted to work something in here about lack of access to books for visually impaired people. But is that disablism? Lack of a human right that could easily be solved because the technology is here and has been for some time now. Is it disablist that government recently refused to fund a pilot project that would make books accessible to the UK's 3.5 million print disabled? This is also about access to education too.

Maybe that's just politics though. A long hard battle to fight. Yet another. It's certainly someone else disabling me though and not allowing the easily-grabbable solution to happen.

I had a bit of a revelation a few years ago. Some people talk weirdly to me because they are confused about the eye contact I'm not giving them. They shout to be heard because I don't appear to be engaging in the way they're used to even though I may be listening intently with my eye footprints landing a few milimetres to the right
of where they're used to.

Not knowing that blind people can be anything more than piano tuners. Not knowing the oh-too-commonly used phrases bound to piss disabled people off. Not really understanding why parking in a disabled parking bay can mean no food this weekend at the supermarket. Can these basic little issues be down to the fact that we're in a disablist society? Whose media doesn't reflect disability experiences? Or, again, are these just things, stuff that happens, what's expected if you're in a minority group. And what can be done about this? The answer, of course, is that disabled people become more proactive. This blogging event is an example of how we can be more proactive.

Rambling a bit today but I'm gonna drag it all back to where I started. It's subconscious disablism that is most dangerous. Thoughtless 'not my problem' disablism which might be a small moment in time for the person disabling you but the rest of your life if you are the person being disabled. And it can certainly wear your self esteem away.

In 1995, 8 months before the DDA came in, I was arrested outside a nightclub by two police officers. The bouncers hadn't let me in because "you don't have a carer and we can't be expected to look after you". I was rightly pissed off. I stood outside the doors for two hours taking customers aside and telling them what the bouncers had done and urging them to reconsider going into the nightclub. I should add that I regularly attended other clubs - I was 24 after all.

Lots of people didn't want to talk to me. That was fine. A bit heartbreaking but fine. I was chuffed about the ones who said they would never go back.

But at 1am I was arrested "to prevent a breach of the peace". They agreed I hadn't breached the peace but were worried I might contribute towards something or or other. I was upset that my right to protest against the establishment that had just barred me for disablist reasons had been taken away from me. I was later enfuriated to learn that the police officers had arrested me to protect me. It was a double hit of disablism. I wept openly on the streets. I felt my life wasn't mine and control was not in my hands when the police bundled me into their van. It made me take to my bed for a week. It all happened at a time when I had applied for approx 50 jobs after leaving university and not got anything.

I quite like the word 'disablism'. It's a good solid word isn't it. I hate the phrase 'social model'. IT sounds like an essay. I think we should hurl out the social model v medical model term and just think of things as disablist or not disablist. It's far more understandable linguistically ... and it might catch on. Plus you wouldn't take someone to court for being "too medical model" would you? Doesn't disablism embody all these ideas?

Blogging against disablism day

2006-04-28T16:39:00.000Z

Ooh just 3 days to go til the big day!

What will I write about? The glass ceiling? The drip drip drip of little comments that serve to wear away at you and display a lack of appreciation/respect? Badly designed gizmos that visually impaired people can't use? I'll see.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out Blogging Against Disablism Day and get ready to write about it on May 1. Spread the word and all hail the Goldfish.

First 200 ...

2006-04-19T20:31:00.000Z

Flicking round the local blogosphere I have been inspired by Turtle's brave act of posting the first 200 words of her assignment.

So, being as I've spoken about it loads, I'm going to post the first couple of hundred words in the first chapter of my 'novel' (note the apostrophes). It's from the chapter one that I worked up in my writing class about 6 weeks ago. Here it is.

SHE'S WATCHING HIM

Qualified teachers do not run video stores, people who hate films do not run video stores. Most importantly, blind people do not run video stores. In fact, blind people don't run any kind of shop, do they?

Mark Kent had fucked up. If he didn't take a grip on his life soon he was going to end up a lonely unfulfilled sad blind man in an old people's home. He imagined himself in the corner not even being able to take part in the afternoon fun that was tea, ginger biscuits and a nice game of charades. He was thirty-one, after all. That meant his life was almost set in stone, didn't it? And do thirty-one year olds still wear jeans and rock band T-shirts? He wasn't sure.

He hated his job. He had no social life to speak of. He lived with an idiot and, when it came to love, well he hadn't had a date in years and by his own admission was getting a little desperate.

Mark's Mum regularly liked to remind him that he hadn't had a girlfriend since that nice Justine. "When was that again, Mark? Five years ago?" she'd say down the phone. "You of all people need children so that they can look after you in later life, you know."

His Mum was nuts but everyone else seemed to get what they wanted so easily and right now, this Wednesday morning, this wet, cold, and presumably grey day - the day after the night before - was weighing down on him. Even if It looked a nice crisp blue to those who could see it, it was overwhelmingly overcast in his head, and probably flecked with blood too.

His white cane swooshed a few broken bottles into the gutter as he tapped his way down the high road to the shop. Then, ouch, he managed to once again walk into the orning in front of the bakery 3 doors down. Some mornings he judged the angle perfectly and missed it - cool way to go Mark, confident looking bloke who can't see. Today, a foot off course, it poked him directly in the right eye - pathetic, loser, needy, embarrassment, stick him in care for his own safety for goodness sake.

.....[snip]......

Good stuff to read on the web?

2006-04-19T20:04:00.000Z

I want some good internet websites to read. If you read an interesting site regularly and care to share ... please do!

I dunno though, I think I might be a bit dull. I want to know more about Japanese culture, Chinese politics, the impending world energy crisis, the environment, how big corporations are screwing us all, etc. Can anyone lift the lid on a good website or blog? Or many? Or anything you think I'd be interested in besides? Obviously it goes without saying that all bloggers who have previously posted here all have fantastic blogs ;)

C'mon, amaze me. I want websites that I'll keep going back to for more.

[update] Just read this entry back. Have I turned into a student or something?

Karen J Maclean WHERE ARE YOU?

2006-04-19T20:01:00.000Z

Are you hiding? Are you OK? Write back to me oldest of net buddies.

The Tiger Woods fallout

2006-04-15T08:37:00.000Z

I'm having a too much to blog day. There is so much stuff in my head I want to slam down into the blog that it's all a bit too much. I've not blogged for a couple of weeks so it was bound to happen.

This week's busy-ness is down to recording the next podcast (slightly early cos Mat Fraser is zooming off to the states on Monday) and also Tiger Woods didn't help.

It was a weird week, my Assistant Producer was away on annual leave and suddenly the heavens broke. I was working ridiculously long hours - wednesday I worked 5am til 10pm.

Tiger Woods. I have to say I don't particularly care that he said spaz though I am minded of the whole little acts of degradation debate that Ragged Edge are having at the moment.

I posted an article late Tuesday morning soon after the news broke. Within 3 hours we were receiving approx 1 email per minute about it. WE must've had hundreds now in the past few days. The vast majority were from non-disabled people all keen to a: rubbish us for mentioning it and B: point out that spaz isn't a disability related word in America "it just means idiot" wrote one person. "it describes someone who is a klutz, lacking balance, undignified, clumsy and uncoordeinated" wrote another (I paraphrased that last quote).

Isn't this the whole point though? Do I need to say more?

Clearly language changes though. Idiot in Britain was, if I recall correctly, far more offensive 200 years ago ... referring very specifically to people locked away for being mad? We now use it in a friendly way. It has no real sting. But then I spoke to some Americans who were offended by it. We're aware a journalist got Tiger to repeat his phrase replacing the word 'spaz' with 'wreck' ... so what does that say? It must've been very quickly understood that it was offensive, no?

The hundreds of emails we received were from the "political correctness gone mad" brigade. The tone was unpleasant. Particular kudos to the person who wrote calling us cunts ... and the other person who cleverly said that Ouch was more of an offensive word to him. Brilliant.

It's all been an intersting debate though ... but maybe I'm finding it interesting for the wrong reasons. I'm fascinated by the human response to what I wrote.

On Wednesday I wrote a very balanced and fair article which summed up the situation to me.

Amazing response. Yet more emails. I'm told almost half a million people read that article in its first 24-hours of being live on the news site. Certainly Ouch's hits quadrupled too.

I'm told we made Popbitch and B3ta websites and newsletters too. And also the Drudge Report???? (I've yet to find reference to it on that site though, if anyone could help that'd be appreciated).

Course, with a name next to it, the emails got that bit more personal towrds me. But above many things I've written recently, I'm really quite pleased with that BBC News article. I hope it places the whole language thing in a context, of sorts.

As a journalist you want response so I was very pleased. I'm aware people probably clicked and read it more because they were surprised to see the word 'spaz' on a BBC news website. Oh and many more uses of the word spaz to be heard on Radio 4's You and Yours programme this Monday when they review the Ouch Podcast. Incidentally presenter John Waite loveds the podcast.

Have lots of other things to say. Very impressed by the whole Blogging Against Disablism idea that Goldfish has come up with.

Talking of blogs, Ouch's own weblog is about to get updated. At the moment it's a little bit of an unsatisfactory user experience as you have to wait hours if not days (if it's a weekend) before your comments go live. Well, we'll soon have a 24-hour moderation system in place which means it can be a truer live'er blog. And we really hope that disabled bloggers will be keen to post that bit more because we love having those links back to your personal blogs ... it'd be great to grow that disabled blogging community some more and intertwine and cross reference it all that little bit more. We all know there are lots of experiences from disabled people that just aren't shared ... never see the light of day ... the blogging community could be a powerful source, a powerful POLITICAL source of growth, pressure and appreciation around disability matters and our lifestyles. I've tried to arrange protests before and there is a real issue with getting disabled people physically into one place at the same time for so many reasons. Cost is another reason. Doing things adhoc in real life non-webspace is an issue. SO hail to the Goldfish and congrats for that mention in The Guardian.

Podcast out there!

2006-04-01T06:06:00.000Z

Well we've been working so hard on our disability podcast at work that I'm knackered out of my head.

We really need publicity for it so, bloggers out there reading this, could you link to it from your weblog? Pretty please? And then get your mates to link to it from their weblogs or websites too, please? We need to convince people that it's worth continuing with ... and it's a great bit of razor sharp disability humour that we can point at and say "look, it can work, you don't need to be scared. Disdability is cool!". I think programme makers would like to do more on disability, would like to be innovative, but need examples of things working.

Tell your mates about it. Tell people who aren't your mates about it. Tell journalists you know.

It's called 'The Ouch Podcast'. It's presented by actor Mat Fraser and comedian Liz Carr. They're fantastic.

If you've got iTunes, cut and paste the following line into the bit that says 'add a podcast':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast/rss.xml

...this'll make sure it's forever on your list of podcasts and you get the latest one delivered to your iPod as soon as it goes live on the web.

But, of course, you don't need an iPod. You can listen to it on your computer like other audio stuff, radio stations etc. Or you could download it, burn it to a CD if ya like, or put it on any MP3 player not necessarily those iPod thingies. That word 'podcast' confuses a lot of people and I guess it's not surprising ;)

If you're gonna link to it on your page and want to help it raise to the top of Google and other search engines, then can you help us by following these instructions:

Use the following words as the linked words: 'BBC Ouch Disability Podcast'

So, highlight all those words and make them one big link to our podcast page http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast/

If you want to know why I'm asking you to do this specifically, drop me an email and I'd be happy to tell you about the cunning trickery that is 'Search Engine Optimization'. Mail me too if you have other ideas on how we can promote it. Newsletters, whatever. We want this to be a 'word of mouth' success, something the disability community can own and be part of. Doesn't matter where you are in the world, all this will help.

Add it to your favourite sites on your blog if you like ... and/or write a blog entry linking to us and talking a weeny bit about us. We'll love you forever!

Does this sound like begging? Anything you can do is fabulous.

In, done, dusted.

2006-03-07T22:36:00.000Z

Well, my Chapter One was handed in last Friday and at yesterday's class we discussed it.

Was really pleased with the outcome. Everyone had really positive comments about it and - after sharing what the rest of the story was going to be about - it got a larf. Have to say wasn't quite expecting that reaction ;)

(Katie A2 read no further if you've not read the chapter yet cos you're not allowed to hear my thoughts)

Currently I dislike the main character. I think he's duuuullllll. One dimensional. I also dislike the job I've given him. Stuff is missing. Oddly I quite like the female character I've invented though ... in as much as there's more meat on her bones, more of a character and a personality.

But ... I told this to the class and they urged me not to change it. So, dunno what to do here. My instinct is to change the main character.

But chapter one is chapter one. It's a little condensed at the moment and I'm sure I'll take bits from it and play some of them in the rest of the novel. The condensed nature was an anxiety for a couple of the students on class, wasting some ideas that could be developed more. I keep saying "if I ever write this". I've been told by several parties now that I have to.

I've got my timeline. check.

I've got my interweaving plot idea. check.

Some of the incidents en route to the main ending are a bit not there. not check.

God, can't believe this weblog entry is in the least bit fathomable or interesting to anyone bar me. Don't humour me.

On other news ... signed up the presenters on Ouch's forthcoming podcast. It's gonna be a blast! Can't wait. Katie F, sorry it's not Mik.

Off to Amsterdam on Thursday! Wahey yip yo.

Chapter One, now in

2006-03-03T16:53:00.000Z

I finished! Yay! It is now handed in, the whole group has got my work.

I have some issues with it. As Katie 2 on the last entry said, it'll be nothing like the final version. I had a time limit and by the time I had written 2,000 words I'd already substantially painted myself into a corner in terms of setting, motivation etc.

Course, not entirely sure I'll ever write this book. It was chapter one, yes, but more 'a chapter one' than 'the chapter one'.

With more time to think and research, I would probably have gone for something a little less like a fractured love story and possibly written something a little futuristic. Near future though, proper progressive today work, not very alien aliens.

Had a bit of a crap couple of days. Kind of want to lay in bed all weekend with duvet wrapped round me. Duvets protect you from everything don't ya know.

Oh ... I had about 1 minute to think up what the novel might be called ... in that time limit I called it 'She's watching him'.

frightened

2006-02-26T13:40:00.000Z

5 days to go until the novel is in. I've thought about it loads. I Still don't have a good first line though.

I have my notes in front of me. I've been here since 11:30, give or take trips to the fridge (Diet Coke #3 on the go right now).

I haven't actualy started writing. I've written yet more notes though. And also, standing in the kitchen earlier I had a revelation that has altered the story, or changed it back to an earlier idea that I had discarded.

I can't seem to ve in. I've even written a plan for Chapter One (that's what's gotta be in by Friday) I know what I need to do to get from A to B (B being where I want to be at the end of the chapter, what I want the readers to know by that stage) but I can't write.

Weirdly writing this blog entry has helped with my flow ... so far from being a procrastinatary sidetrack that I'd first imagined, it has actually helped a bit.

Off I go back to the novel.

12 days to go

2006-02-19T08:04:00.000Z

12 days to go. Think that last post was written in a bit of a hurry. It's not that I can't write, I have to write all the time and have written several creative things for publication and many for performance.

It's just this big sprawly big fat novel thing it's so daunting. My dissertation at university was around 100,000 words, it's doable. Admittedly that was a textual analysis of UK radio phone-ins and whether or not they are a democratic forum.

Screw all that for a bit though. I just had some oats. Aren't oats fantastic? Raw oats with a drop of milk and a sprinkling of fake sugar (Nothing Comes Closer To Sugar - Silver Spoon, the best sugar substitute out there). Got about 1 stone to lose To get down to my ideal weight now. Everyone says I don't need to lose it but they're wrong. Wrong idiots. Don't worry this is not a food disorder emerging.

Where was I? Slouched a lot yesterday. Am now kidding self that I need to do nothing and just relax in order to cure current bout of insomnia that is waking me up at 3am and all the antisocialness that it then brings about when I'm knackered by 11am and absolutely must sleep by 5pm for a bit.

In the novel writing class this Monday we will all be commenting on the first chapter of 4 of the students. They sent them out by email on Friday. I've not yet red them. Am gonna pour over these shortly, once I've got a cup of tea.

Goldfish I think you're probably right with the two person perspective thing but I worry that this is the best way forward for my novel. If I submit chapter one and it's only from one person's perspective and doesn't give the basic idea (you'd need to read two chapters to understand the two main characters) ... it's not what I'd be wanting to put across. I realise chapter one isn't going to be anything like my final chapter one but, ya know, it's a pride thing. I know I can write well and want to display it a bit to best effect.

Third person would be the next best ... but ... I dunno.

I'm always a last minute person. I like to mull things over so that every last idea is thought through. So that the environment that I live in, the world, has the opportunity to drop in new things that could help me with the construction of my work. I do this with my columns on Ouch, used to do it with essays at university. Never understood those students who wrote their essay within a day of receiving instructions ... they would either hand it in straight away or sit on it and find themselves rewriting it. And This was in the days before students had lots of good access to computers and it was still ok to submit handwritten work. 1994 before you start making up how old I am. 1994 was also the year when we stopped using pit ponies in Britain ... bet you didn't know that? Just heard it on LBC.

Chapter one, then.

Needs to explain the background of the main character ... who, oddly enough, is a blind fella. Background isn't the right idea, more about motivation really ... to understand him well enough to then be able to write about him and have the reader understand why he might do or think things ... and also so that the reader starts to care about the character.

Why do I write this blog? To get my writing juices flowing. ON days when I don't write the blog I'll be writing something else, just to get things flowing. I had writers block last year and that wasn't good.

Apparently if you mix a bit of honey into some dry oats and, stick it in the oven and bake it for a short while ... they come out rather nice and crispy and delicious. I need to try this.

On another topics ...

Weirdly I've developed a bit of an intolerance to caffeine these past few weeks. But, to add to this, since Thursday I've noticed I've got a real problem with sugar too! I get a nasty head rush and headache shortly after consuming anything sugary. It happened on Thursday after eating a Kit Kat. I'd rather badly had only a muffin to eat all day and when I got home I had a 2 finger Kit Kat which sent me reeling. Same happened yesterday when I had a Kit Kat. Sugar is dreadful. If they invented it now it would be banned.

2 weeks to go

2006-02-17T06:25:00.000Z

It's two weeks today that I need to hand in chapter one of my novel. 14 days. That includes 2 weekends, one of which is likely to be blitzed because I'm decorating and sorting out the house at the moment.

There will be a way through.

Trouble is I've not yet written a word. Not one. My previous joy (two posts ago) on how I've worked out the plot for my novel has now disintegrated, my confidence has dipped hugely in it. It sounds like a love story? Did I really want to write a love story? OK so it's a weird kind of love but I really don't want to have it turn into a piece of chick lit.

Let me say at this stage that there's nothing wrong with a good drop of chick lit, I read bits myself (Jane Green?). I read all sorts of things very deliberately. but I just hadn't envisaged myself writing something like that.

I guess there's no point angsting. Though the synopsis currently might read like a bit of a fractured romance, the actual piece shouldn't be quite so love oriented. It's about people. If I don't want it to be a romance, it won't turn into a romance, right?

I'm looking at this so entirely in the abstract at the moment. I have a synopsis, I have a plot line-through, I've planned out some elements of the plot in detail, I've worked out the peril and the actions and reactions ... so I'm being very structural right now. Next step: pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

Course, sitting here writing this blog entry I'm thinking: this desk is crap for writing at. I need a new desk. And also this keyboard is a bit worn, I need a new one. Can't possibly write anything until I've got a new desk and a new keyboard. Oh and possibly a new chair. FYI: I bought a new desk, new chair and new keyboard this time last year. I didn't like them pretty much as soon as I installed them; health and safety would go nuts. The desk is too high, means you hold yourself at a funny angle and - yes Gimpy - it means my elbow is almost constantly rubbing up against the edge of said desk causing that constant pressure that can bring on arthritis attacks. Gout if you like. Won't mention gout but it's now a writing issue. Fucking gout, who the hell else gets gout. It's a kidney problem, that's what causes it in case you aren't aware. Crap. Why do I have to suddenly get a kidney problem.

Anyhoo ... 2 weeks left. I need to start. Where do I start. How do I introduce the character? What's the style?

I'm thinking seriously about doing that fashionable thing of one chapter written from one perspective, and another written from another. But I really don't know. Do I do it third person? Third person restricted or third person omnipitant? I'm thinking maybe third person ... but perhaps two x first person. I am also trying to work out what other themes should be in there, what the characters like to do when they're not engaging with plot pursual as such. God I'm talking so abstract ... I don't even really think in these terms it's just I don't know how else to express it simply on this blog.

And the other question is ... why am I writing a blog entry when I could be writing the novel? Novel. Damon's novel. Feels odd saying that. Bit wanky. Why should Damon have a novel? Why does he deserve a novel attached to his name? Weird. Feels odd. Sad aspirationalism or something. Like I'll ever finish a novel and it'll be any good.

I still haven't learnt how to pace a plot / novel. Just any thoughts on that would be useful right now. Not necessarily direction, or instruction, more just hearing what people have got to say about it. Other peoples' experiences.

This keyboard is sticky and clunky and needs replacing. Anyone else get through keyboards as quickly as I do? Approx one every 9 months. I'm a touch typist, I use it a lot but don't hammer it.

Going. Way too early. My insomnia is making me wake at 3:30am this week. I'm sleeping again between 6pm and 7pm and then having a proper sleep at 10:30pm.

just 2 and a half weeks to write my novel!

2006-02-15T05:11:00.000Z

First, need to say (very briefly) that about 2 hours after I posted that last post I had a gout/arthritis attack ... this time in my effing elbow for the first time ... rendering writing rather painful nay impossible for some days. Got to tell you it was extremely annoying because, as you can tell, I was rather bouyed up with ideas and wanted to start writing but physically couldn't. Bastard body of mine. Gonna move on though, can you believe I've actually received complaints from readers of this blog for boring everyone about gout? Who do I write this thing for anyway? Me primarily :) Am just coming to terms with it all hence my obsession I guess, it'll bed down as I begin to know and love the pain and swelling.

Anyhoo ... back to the novel stuff.

Schlepped to university Monday night for another class. Really enjoyed it. we had to do a free write, starting line was something like: "When he/she woke in the morning, the dinosaur was still there ..." and our task is to then write beyond that sentence. I twisted it round a bit and built into it some themes from a short story I've been kicking around my head ... something about future violence and disruption by quasi terrorists. Bit tech, bit low level sci fi. Not too much though because I prefer sci fi that is quite real, slightly in the future believable understandable stuff. They call sci fi something else these days, um, something like 'progressive' or 'pre-emptive' or 'postulative'. It's neither of these but I've forgotten ... suggests that it's about guessing the future though. That's cool. Not "welcome thee to the high flung constellation of zog." type stuff. Eeek. Used to like all sorts of sci fi, now I hate it like I hate Lord of the Rings fantasy stuff ... which I used to love too. I grew up? John Wyndham kicks ass in the sci fi area. He's the father of all that is right in sci fi.

I distracted myself with sf talk, sory, back on track now.

We then looked at perspective. We were asked to think up a situation and then write a few sentence about it. "I'm sitting in front of x and I hate him/her because ..." was the starting point.

WE then had to do it in the third person. Then we had to write it from the perspective of the other person, the one being hated. Then again from the perspective of someone who was trying to read a book but was being distracted by the two people above. About 4 other perspectives too.

I don't know if it sounds rubbish but when you do it, it's actually quite interesting and enriching. What it made me do is to think of the situation - I'd set it in a pub - from a real 360 degree perspective. I think, though, it was more an exercise in where the voice comes from, who can tel the story best, how it fits together, etc.

Other stuff Doing my house up at the moment. decorating, carpeting, new furniture. It has been a bit of a dreary state for quite a long time. I need to either sell it next year or sort out a way of paying back my ex-girlfriend so that I can stay here.

Oh and ... a complete ban on smoking!!!! How flipping fantastic is that? Does that start summer 2006 or 2007? I haven't caught upp with the dates yet cos I got in late from work last night.

Yay! I've worked out how to write my novel.

2006-02-04T07:10:00.000Z

Yay! Ladies and gentleman. I can now proudly announced I have worked out exactly what my novel is going to be about. I've written notes, timelines, synopsis, the whole thing.

I still need to develop the characters but I've worked out all the milestone important points, have weaved together some complexities, and I am very pleased.

"So Damon, after all these years of thinking about writing a novel and talking about it too ... is it your evening course that has spurred you on to do this?"

And the simple answer is 'yes'.

Kate, you were right. You have been telling me for years to do a course ... I was a huge cynic "don't care about other writers, dont' want to go on a course, don't want to share, I'm too cool and sorted"

But here I am. I've actually thrown together some fragments of ideas I've had for years and created a real story that could well work (um, yeah, got to write it yet. Realise this book is a reality still pending).

What drove me: It's about having your mind focused. It's about having to present something on Monday. it's about being able to talk about "my novel" because others on the class are doing that already.

Also, last week the course tutor gave us an essay about plot; plotting, fitting together of different elements important in a novel. I've studied it personally. As a group we studied it too.

The essay isolated 8 important things that must be in a novel. The tutor asked us to write a sentence next to each of these. Before you realise it, you've got a novel! Amazing. Amazing how just taking that structure - that admittedly looked a bit abstract and silly to begin with - really makes total sense ... and by fitting my ideas into that structure ... well bugger me if a novel hasn't appeared. Well, the bones of one.

Sorry, a very self indulgent post on my blog today. Probably a bit abstract. Wonder if anyone knows what I'm going on about.

What drove me II: In 8 weeks time I've got to have chapter one of my novel ready. Not entirely sure what chapter one is going to contain yet though ... Ive sussed out the character basics (the background, effectively) and I've sussed out the 'impulse' (that's how the ball gets rolling with the story, the bit where the plot starts proper) but chapter one has to set things up a bit, introduce characters. Hmmm. How to do that and remain interesting too. A conundrum, a bridge to cross, a bit of a challenge. I love writing challenges though ... and anyone out there who I've sub-edited will know how my mind works in terms of narratives, getting from A to B and helping the reader along (and probably in terms of Damon shouting or sending emails to get his writers to clarify their thoughts and 'line throughs' and to bare their souls a bit more [sorry Julia]). But shorter pieces are different again. I feel a bit adrift at creating a 200,000 word narrative ... 1,000 words are much easier to deal with, you can see the beginning and the end and keep track of that middle bit quite easily ... but when the middle bit is 180,000 words then you've got an entirely different narrative paradigm / situation going on.

Indulge me this morning, won't you. Especially as I probably won't wax lyrical about this kind of stuff again. Not at length.

OK, so anyone out there who's further down the line in a novel or has written anything before ... please feel free to chip in with thoughts or advice right now.

Pub

2006-02-02T00:27:00.000Z

Could it be that I am wrecked?

Could it be that I spent the whole evening down a particular pub in Holborn> Could it be that this pub is called the Shakespeare's Head and that I hilariously call it 'Tom's Head'?

So, yeah, went down the pub with Paul from net-guide.co.uk. I think we chatted about accessibility of websites, how to make our first million, the issues surrounding getting a podcast onto the BBC, girls, relationships, families, Christmas and much more.

Polish sounding barmaid tried to crack on to Paul at one stage but she didn't come back afterwards. "I may be smiling but I'm not happy" she said in a post structural nod towards the concept of barmaidishness. Confused Paul a bit I think. Shame really, if she'd been a little less unhappy, well, I'd have shagged her. If only she knew, eh? (deep irony or bad truth? You decide)

Took the tube home. Girls on late night tube rides always seem really sexy. There's a moral here I'm sure. Dropped off at the kebab shop at the top of road. Bought kebab, came home. Starting eating kebab ... kebab smelt wrong. Smelt of offal. Ate a bit more then consigned offally bad kebab to my kitchen bin. It stank.
So, here I am, blogging into the early hours with clearly way too much alcohol in my system. Parents are ariving around 9am to help decorate my flat. Hurrah for parents! I have started my rehydration program already. Seriously, this can't go on. I don't even like alcohol any more.

Hey, alcohol abuse over and done with I have a bit of good news.

Two weeks ago my rheumatologist at the hospital read out some blood test results and suggested I had a liver problem. I was gutted. Don't want to add to my existing organ issues. He suggested I'd need to seek help elsewhere if I had a liver problem. He sent me to have more blood tests because previous liver tests said I was 93 way above the average of 45. No idea what this means.

Today I heard that the new set of blood tests delivered good results. I no longer have a liver problem and likely never had one in the first place. I'm on lots of drugs though and wouldn't have been surprised had my liver joined my kidney and heart and eyes as the next organ to fuck up.

La dee da. Happy happy. Pleased I've still got a liver. And I hope you share the beautiful irony that I went out to celebrate with alcohol.

Will tell you about Monday's writing class tomorrow or the day after. that's IF I can be arsed, IF.

Lady B: thank you for offer of souping. I'm keen on any healthy recipes anyone might have. Interesting new snacks/meals. I will share my ideas too.

Oh, did I say I'm going to Amsterdam in a few weeks?